Naruto: Battle of the Nightmares
by The Canadian HoneyBadger
Summary: He was Naruto freaking Uzumaki damnit! Future Hokages wouldn't let things like video game rules and World enslaving monsters stop him from saving his precious people! Even if he had to crawl through their personal nightmares to wake them up! Another 'Naruto in a game' styled fic but with my own personal twist. Slow start but will end with epic battles.
1. Day 1- A New Day

He was Naruto freaking Uzumaki damnit! Future Hokages wouldn't let things like video game rules and World enslaving monsters stop him from saving his precious people! Even if he had to crawl through their personal nightmares!

I do not own Naruto Uzumaki or any other elements of 'Naruto' because Masashi refused to give it to me when I asked, now he's on….THE LIST!

(Music suggestions see bottom authors note for more)

XXXXX

**Day-1 The beginning**

(Pirates of the Carribean OST "Jack Sparrow", or other cheerfully ragged music)

It was a bright and cheerful morning in Konoha that our hero Naruto Uzumaki woke up to, the birds were singing the sun was shining brightly and one could hear in some corner of the building that classical music that always plays in cliché relaxing morning scenes. A smile touched his lips and he let his eyes flutter shut again happy to enjoy the moment.

_**BZZT BZZT BZZT**_

A hand slammed down the alarm clock that in its malicious hatred of rest of any kind, decided to ruin the Blonde genin's morning. Naruto groggily opened his eyes and his mostly asleep mind half-heartedly tried to remember what it was he had to do that day but it gave up and his shining blue orbs closed and he started snoring.

It seemed he was going to be late to his team's training session that day, Kakashi would have been proud.

A few hours later the birds had long since given up tweeting merry songs and went about their birdy business elsewhere. the sun had risen high into to the sky, however Konoha still remained silent.

In fact the entire elemental nation's was silent aside from the twittering's and coming and going of animals.

It was then Naruto awoke; he groggily rubbed his eyes and looked over to the alarm clock he had yet to break in morning rage, he saw it was 10 in the morning. Sighing happily he went back to bed and for a few seconds rested.

He then shot up and looked again wildly at the clock to ensure he hadn't misread it. Unfortunately for him the clock still read 10 am and Naruto let out a small whining sound before rushing about his apartment trying to get ready.

A few minutes later he crawled out of the bathroom, freshly washed and changed. He scrambled over to the kitchen and made some cup ramen and ran out the door while sipping his favourite morning beverage….ramen broth.

Yum-yum

XXXXX (Silence)

Naruto rushed out the door in a hurry had forgetting to slip on his bright orange jacket leaving him clad in only a white tee and his orange track pants with sandals. Shrugging to himself mentally he sprinted through Konoha before realising something rather strange.

Konoha was empty; the streets usually crowded with people going about their business were empty and dead quiet.

Feeling rather perturbed by the quiet Naruto started calling out in the empty area.

"Hello? Is anyone here?" he shouted hoping vaguely that someone would come out, however it was for naught as his voice just echoed in the shinobi village and he looked around wildly.

"I wonder what's going on." Naruto asked himself before heading off to training ground seven, if nobody was there he'd go to the Hokage tower, and if nobody was there then….

He'd figure something out.

XXXXX

Nothing.

Nobody was around; the training ground lacked the sounds of his team working hard to improve themselves, the village square was dead silent, and the Hokage tower he'd found was completely empty, even when he had planted a paint bomb on the Hokage's desk the Anbu guards didn't even stop him like they always did when he tried that.

Naruto looked around before wondering what he could do, it was then he spotted something troubling.

There sitting right in front of him was an Anbu, he was sitting on the ground leaning against the wall, his pale white mask in the shape of a monkey stared blandly at him. Naruto certainly did **not** let out a girly scream when he realised the man was right behind the hokage's door the entire time.

"Uhhh, hi!" Naruto blurted out rubbing the back of his head sheepishly, trying to fight down the embarrassment he felt for squealing like that instead of reacting like a shinobi should, then again it was lucky he did react like a shinobi should or he'd be in trouble. "Uhh where is everyone? There's nobody outside in Konoha and I don't know what's going on." He said and waited for a response.

He didn't get one.

After a good minute had passed in silence Naruto got slightly annoyed at the lack of response and shook the Anbu lightly,

"Hey can you hear me alright? I'm talking to you!" he yelled out before he realised something, the man was completely unconscious.

Suddenly feeling very afraid of whatever could knock an Anbu unconscious Naruto looked around the Hokage's office again before trying to figure out how to wake up the man.

He tried pouring water on him, poking him, and all manner of painting moustaches on his mask didn't wake him up.

Naruto gulped lightly before nervously grabbing a hold of the man's mask. An Anbu's identity was a closely guarded secret and Naruto was breaking one of the unspoken rules in Konoha by doing this. But he needed answers and he wasn't going to get them by sitting here and waiting!

His precious people could be in danger!

Suddenly like that his nervousness vanished and Naruto's hands stopped shaking before he took off the Anbu's mask.

He was a rather ordinary looking guy, brown hair, brown eyes and a plain face. Naruto sweat-dropped at just how boring he looked and he realised that monkey was probably what he had termed nameless-ninja where they'd probably die to some stronger named guy. Whatever the case was the only thing that stood out about the guy was a weird star in a funny shape etched on his forehead in red.

Feeling for a pulse Naruto found one and it was strong so the guy wasn't sick, just in a deep sleep, or dead. Naruto wondered vaguely what had put the guy asleep before absentmindedly rubbing the man's tattoo to see if it was real or not.

The instant he touched it the tattoo glowed red and Naruto yelped in surprise as he felt something strange happened.

**Begin mind rescue?**

**YES NO**

Naruto felt as if the words had forced themselves in his head and even though it didn't hurt it still felt off and he quickly mentally selected yes without even thinking, hoping the throbbing in his head would go away.

**Warning mind rescue 'Anbu #25' is meant for level 30 and up; Continue?**

**YES NO**

Naruto groaned as the unfamiliar intrusion in his mind throbbed before he selected yes mentally again and then everything went black.

**LOADING**

XXXXX (Castlevania 2 Simon's quest main theme, or other mini-boss music)

**Hint: when mind rescuing a non-vital person you will only have to fight their boss as opposed to entire stages of the mind.**

Naruto wondered what **that **meant before suddenly his vision shifted and he found himself standing in a field somewhere in Konoha proper. Then he saw the Anbu he'd found in the Hokage's office fighting off some sort of pitch black monster.

The creature was shaped like what he remembered what a lesser demon would look like with wings and a spade tail. However the beast also had strange elongated limbs and where normally would reside a face contorted in a cruel smile was only a wicked vertical mouth with sharp gnashing teeth as it screeched.

**ENEMY BOSS!**

**INNER DEMON lvl.24**

**Hp: ?/?**

**Magic -/-**

It batted the man away with barely a thought and then turned to Naruto before screeching again and Naruto realised he had been unable to move until then because now his limbs felt free of some weird invisible prison. But….his limbs felt like they weighed like lead and Naruto felt his mind slow down.

Unfortunately that was all he was able to process as the creature hissed before charging at Naruto and swiping at Naruto with sharp claws. Naruto jumped back only to yelp as a scratch stretched across his chest and a strange -98 popped out instead of blood. Naruto scowled as his chest felt like it was on fire, normally he would've gotten clear of the strike but his body felt heavier then it normally would.

The creature growled at its miss before it charged again and plunged its elongated clawed hand into Naruto's chest and he screamed out.

**Attack damage 120!**

**Hp has reached 0 Naruto has fallen!**

**The entire Party is down! You lose!**

**Returning to hub world….**

Suddenly the pitch dark feeling returned and the pain in Naruto's chest vanished and everything went contorted and his vision shifted into darkness again.

**LOADING…..**

XXXXX (silence)

**Hint: If you fall in battle don't worry! If any other party members are still awake and defeat all enemies around you will awaken with half health. However if all party members fall then you will reawaken at the last save.**

Naruto woke with a start and found himself back in the Hokage's office. Naruto stared at the anbu for a second before he yelped and pawed wildly at his chest where the monsters claws had pierced him, but Naruto felt only smooth skin He stopped and wondered what the hell was going on. Then words shoved themselves in his mind again.

**Mission failed!**

**Warning: if you fail enough times this person will fall into a coma and never awaken!**

'**Anbu #25' chances left: 1/5**

**Money earned: 0**

**Secrets found: 0**

**Items found: 0**

**Enemies defeated: 0**

**Time: 0.49**

**Score: 0**

**Rating…**

**D-rank.**

Naruto growled at the words and was about to yell before the comatose man in front of him started coughing. Thick globs of blood poured out his mouth as he hacked and coughed the man's eyes opening for a second before he fell back. Slowly the rising and falling of the Anbu's chest became calmer after a few tense seconds had passed.

Ignoring the blood on his only white shirt left Naruto quickly checked if the man was okay and found one of the points of the star on his forehead was shaded in black.

Scratching his whiskers absentmindedly Naruto wondered what it all meant before resolving** not **to touch the big scary penta-thingy on the man's face and look elsewhere for clues or help.

XXXXX

Exiting the building Naruto felt his body stiffen and freeze in place like it had when he saw the weird demon attack the Monkey Anbu. Naruto started panic lightly as he felt a weird decision before he found himself in an 'out-of-body-expierance; he felt as if he were watching his own body before he felt a presence and saw his head jerk up.

(Ominous music, horror ambience)

A figure dressed in black tattered robes stared at him, its face shadowed by a dark hood and the darkness inside made Naruto's gut freeze and want to run. It stood there for a second while Naruto felt his body jerk back in surprise the natural way he would've if he could've moved. Wondering what was going on Naruto both physically mentally stiffened when the figure spoke in a strange hissing whisper that seemed far louder than it should.

"_And so the little Hero has been revealed… fate seems to have chosen its champion poorly…" _At this the creature chuckled darkly. Then Naruto felt the now familiar sensation of words forcing themselves in his mind.

**Hint: you are in a cutscene; this is a special event which only occurs in key moments. You are placed into a dialogue and can make different choice that WILL affect your path through the game, this time you can just ask questions however.**

**1. Who are you?**

**2. What are you talking about?**

**3. Where is everyone!?**

Naruto felt a mental nudge and selected the first option after a moment of hesitation when everything seemed to pause. It was as if he could take all the time in the world to make his decision and it wouldn't matter, time would just pause before continuing when he selected an option. Naruto shoved these thoughts to the back of his mind before selecting the first option.

"Who are you?" Naruto heard himself ask.

"_I am a creature of the night, one who walks among your worst nightmares, and the one that has caused the world to fall into eternal slumber." _The figure seemed pleased with itself at that and cocked its head to its side,

**Why have you done this?**

**What do you mean?**

**Who are you?**

Naruto selected the second option trying to figure out what the figure meant.

"What do you mean by eternal slumber?" Naruto 'asked' and the creature laughed in a strange hiss,

"_I feed off terror and fear, and the best meals come from people experiencing nightmares so after years of work and planning I have finally locked everyone in the world in their own personal nightmare….except you."_ It hissed out, and seemed to glare at Naruto

**Why have you done this?**

**Who are you?**

**Why me?**

"Why did you do that?" Naruto felt himself ask a lot calmer then he would have if he could, Naruto struggled vainly against the bonds, but his muscles didn't even twitch at his command.

"_Have I not made myself clear? I feed off Terror! long ago I was sealed into your planet by those who feared me and my power, but after centuries of labour and work I finally have freed myself! Now I have locked the world in nightmares so I can regain my strength, and kill those who have dared take away my power!"_

**Who are you?**

**Why me?**

"Who are you?" Naruto asked fear creeping into his voice and for once Naruto felt like the cutscene was mimicking himself pretty effectively.

"_My name has long been spoken with dread and fear, I am __**Cabadon**__ the demon of fear."_

"Why am I still awake then if you've put the entire world to sleep?" Naruto asked automatically this time and the creature recoiled in anger.

"_Those who locked me away learned of my plans in time to cast a counter measure so that someone with the strength to fight beings made of fear and despair itself would be able to stop me…. They chose poorly it seems though…" _The creature hissed out mockingly and then suddenly the cutscene shifted again.

"Why are you telling me all this?" Naruto felt himself ask and he realised now all control had been rested from him and he could just watch.

"_Because you are going to die no matter what you try, my visions of death and destruction would cause any __**man**__ to go insane never mind a boy like you, it's only a matter of time before you fail and become locked in my eternal nightmare. By all means try to stop me, it will only hasten your death." _With that the creature vanished and the cutscene ended.

(Madder sky Code Geass ost, or other heroic music)

Naruto felt his invisible prison go away and he shivered at the thought of that creature running rampant in his friends' minds.

No, he wouldn't let it do that! He'd stop that monster from taking over his world and he wouldn't be fed off of like some sort of animal!

He was Naruto freaking Uzumaki damnit! Future Hokages wouldn't let things like video game rules and World enslaving monsters stop him from saving his precious people! Even if he had to crawl through their personal nightmares!

XXXX

And that's a wrap! I was hit by this idea after reading yet another video-game ficlet of Naruto and I decided to do my own…with my own little spin of course.

So Naruto has been locking in an RPG much like Kingdom hearts and Legend of Zelda combined. Basically he has to crawl through important character's minds and fight off their worst nightmares to wake them up.

In essence plot important characters ranging from important ones like Sasuke all the way to minor ones like kotetsu are regarded as boss stages and their minds are like dungeons.

Nameless people like generic civs, Chuunin/genin, and anbu are just for grinding and the fact it wouldn't make sense if they were awake or if they were left alone.

I have music suggestions writing brackets between scene breaks and at certain moments in the story, if you've played Kingdom hearts before (which you should have!) it's to add that certain "anime game" feel to the scenes and you don't have to follow but it might be a bit awkward listening to the rap music you kids love during (attempt at) a heartfelt death/love scene. Just saiyan! I will try to repeat songs so if you want you can use a handy-dandy youtube mp3 downloader to make opening the music a little faster and less distracting.

Or you can tell me to stuff my music where the 'sun don't shine'; but I'll cry if you do…

At the end of every chapter I'll also have a list of any new character's/companions and their stats, and if Naruto defeats a new kind of enemy they'll be down here too.

This is basically a snapshot of their abilities however and aren't too important. Next chapter will be a snapshot of the game rules and the one after that will be the beginning of Naruto's journey.

I already have a pairing in mind so it's too late to suggest anyone but feel free to either try to convince me or try to guess, it'll also be a supah secret and isn't as obvious as it'll initially appear.

Also while we're on that note, feel free to leave a review with any criticism or ideas or concepts you guy would like to see!

Now I'll shutup!

**Naruto Uzumaki (pre-game world)**

**Stats:**

**Hp: 2000**

**Mp: 999999**

**Strength: 25**

**Agility: 15**

**Spirit: 999**

**Intelligence: 5**

**Endurance: 50**

**Naruto Uzumaki (now)**

**Stats:**

**Hp: 100/100**

**Mp: locked**

**Strength: 1**

**Agility: 1**

**Spirit: 1**

**Intelligence: 1**

**Endurance: 1**

**Skills  
Tai: 5**

**Nin: 5**

**Gen: 5**

**Abillities locked!**


	2. Day 2- Of Menu's and Men

He was Naruto freaking Uzumaki damnit! Future Hokages wouldn't let things like video game rules and World enslaving monsters stop him from saving his precious people! Even if he had to crawl through their personal nightmares!

I do not own any elements of the anime 'Naruto' but if I could smell like I do! With new old spice nin-nin edition!

XXXX (silence)

**Day 2-Baby steps**

_The bullies laughed at her and all she could feel was humiliation, Sasuke openly laughed at her and everyone at school decided that day that day they hated her._

_Her lunches were stolen rumours were started by other girls and nobody would hang out with her until…._

_No they always had avoided her and nobody had ever taken the time to notice how truly wretched she felt…_

Naruto awoke with a start and jolted out of bed; smacking his head on the ragged bedside table he had scavenged a few years back. Groaning in pain the jinchuuriki lay on the floor few a few seconds before the alarm went off.

Naruto shut his eyes and let out a deep sigh before getting up slamming the off button and went through his morning routine.

(Kingdom hearts ost "destiny islands remix" or other happy-'main hub' music)

Naruto sipped his ramen lightly enjoying the flavour before remembering the events from yesterday and the dream he had had.

"So everyone is asleep in the world except me huh….." he said lightly to himself trying to imagine the consequences of that, "I'll probably have to use Kage bunshin to make sure their houses are all up to scratch," Naruto thought to himself, the people were less asleep and more in a stasis thingy, so he wouldn't have to feed them or clean up their….

Naruto for the moment was quite happy that the spell worked in stasis rather than sleep. Naruto sat for a second and wondered how he'd free everyone before he remembered tapping the tattoo on the Anbu's forehead.

"The monster…if I beat that I bet the guy will wake up!" Naruto said cheerfully, before remembering how he got his ass handed to him. He'd also been a lot slower and weaker in the dream world than in the real one and his jutsu had also been locked away.

Naruto sipped his ramen again like coffee and lost himself in the smell for few seconds, savouring the delicious morning beverage…

Shaking himself from his ramen induced stupor Naruto continued his line of thought. "It said he was level 20-something, does that mean I have to level up like in a video game?"

**HINT: Use the esc button to open the menu!**

"AHHH" Naruto jolted out of his chair and onto the floor as his musings were shattered by the words forcing their way into his head, he then yelled again as his ramen tipped over fell right onto his head, spilling boiling hot ramen broth and noodles over his head.

"The fuck! Why do these words keep popping up out of nowhere? And what the hells the 'esc button' anyway?!" Naruto yelled aloud hoping the words might give him an answer.

…**. Hint: Clap three times to open the menu!**

Shaking his head Naruto went to go have another shower and finish his ramen before trying anything to do with these weird ass rules life kept throwing his way.

After a health and perfect orthodox breakfast of instant noodles and tap water as a drink, Naruto felt ready enough to try whatever death trap was awaiting him this time.

And just like that his vision Suddenly went black.

XXXX (Legend of Zelda Majora's mask main menu theme or other main menu style music)

The first thing Naruto noticed was the song playing in the background of….wherever the hell he was. Thinking about it too much gave him a headache.

His vision was viewing a 2d screen with a list of several options he could choose on the left, There was a picture of him grinning on the right with several stats listed next to his portrait.

Then there was a blank space and at the bottom of the menu screen was a count of how much time he had spent with the world asleep, a percentage meter which currently read 1% and then how much money he had on him.

Suddenly a message popped up in front of his eyes….Naruto stopped thinking about it before his head exploded.

**Welcome to the menu screen! In here you can access several different options, when you access this menu the world outside is NOT pause so be careful when you open it up. You can currently access a few things such as:**

**Equipment**

**Inventory**

**Map/Journal**

**Party members**

**Save/load**

**Options**

**Quit to menu**

**Quit game**

**Open them to find out more about each individual topic!**

Naruto read the message over and nodded to himself before deciding to go through each one first before doing anything drastic. Before he might've ignored this boring stats and stuff but having a demon shoving an arm in ones chest does make one more cautious about this stuff. Mentally selecting equipment Naruto waited for the information to pop up and Wryly wondered if him getting used to this mental way of doing things was a good thing or not.

**Equipment:**

**In this menu you can change different party member's equipment and compare items in your inventory to others.**

There were only two options in the menu though, the first of which was a portrait of him and then just the words 'Back to menu' underneath. Naruto mentally selected himself and the Menu shifted and he saw on the left a picture of himself walking on the spot which rotated slowly. On the right was a menu with mostly empty spots with only two items.

His jumpsuit coat and a stack of 10 cup ramen.

**Orange coat**

**Armour: 10**

**End+ 4**

**Wil+6**

**Cha-10**

**Int-12**

Naruto vaguely wondered how he knew what each one of these stats meant before shrugging mentally to himself and dragged the coat onto his model and the orange coat appeared in a gold shimmer on his avatar.

Backing out of the two screens Naruto went to inventory and found it was just showing what he had on hand before backing out and entering **Map/journal**.

**This is your map and Journal screen, on the right is a map of the area you are in and on the left is a list of any quests you currently have.**

Naruto looked over the map of Konoha and swapped back and forth between a map of his room, a map of Konoha, and a map of the elemental nations.

Shrugging to himself Naruto looked over his quests and noticed three different tabs.

Incomplete quests, completed quests, and tutorials.

Opening up tutorials first Naruto rolled his eyes when he realised it was just the same messages he had shoved in his head in game along with a few obvious ones, who forgot how to jump in video games anyway?! Nevermind ones where you controlled normally as in real life?!

Naruto opened up the incomplete quests since he hadn't completed any quests and found himself staring at an entry.

**Main quest act 1: A hidden Threat**

_Free your friends after learning the basics of the new world!_

_Face your new foe: Complete_

_Open the menu: Complete_

_Learn the basics of the menu: Incomplete_

_?_

Naruto nodded to himself before backing out and selecting the party member's options It was a just a mass of portraits but all of them were only silhouettes aside from his in the middle which had a slight grey tint to it.

**Welcome to the party screen! After you free a major person from their nightmare they can join you on your quests! However you can only have 3 in a team at once! Party members not in your crew can relax and regain HP/MP, perform tasks for money and exp, and can research more about your new enemy! It is also important to socialise with your companions to earn bonuses in their stats and learn more about them.**

**Currently you have no companions unfortunately.**

Naruto looked at some of the portraits before giving up trying to puzzle them out and looked at the main menu

Naruto looked over Save/load and realised he couldn't access it; he tried to do the same with the other options and couldn't wondering at why he couldn't access anything under Party members he shrugged and exited the menu.

XXXX (Kingdom hearts ost Destiny islands HD remix, or hub music)

Now feeling a lot more confident with his understanding of the game Naruto went back into what the game called Naru mode and words forced themselves into his head again.

**Hint: Great! Now that you know how to play the game you should now head to level 1 to begin your new adventure!**

Naruto felt his adrenaline build up this time he wouldn't let some monster beat him! Naruto's confidence wavered slightly as he wondered why the world had changed into a game, shoving the mental wonderings aside Naruto headed to the first level, checking his map several times when he got lost.

XXXX (silence)

Naruto entered the building and as he checked over the map he read the title of the area he nearly had a heart attack; this was Sakura's house.

Sure enough a middle aged woman with pink hair sat snoring lightly at the dining room table and upstairs Naruto found his crush lying against her wall with a red pentagram tattoo on her forehead. Naruto felt a spike of anger at the creature that would do this to Sakura before steeling himself and lightly touching her forehead.

XXXXX

Ooooh a cliffhanger! Umad audience?! U MAD?!

*Achem* dwindling sanity on my part aside this chapter was just here to give you guys a glimpse of what's to come, I think there is an incongruity in the stats in the previous chapter but I will be completing a full synopsis of them after the first dungeon.

Betcha guys didn't see Sakura as the first level though huh?

Okay maybe it was the obvious choice I mean her personal demons (being a sheltered fangirl: no offence Sakura fans) Are bullies and her own insecurities easy level 1 baddies! Also if I was going to have Naruto choose where he was going he'd probably go to Sakura first which made sense and helped out me in terms of making shit work.

But the thing is I don't like Sakura and having her as Naruto's first companion seemed lame, but in the end common sense wore through. I was thinking of having the Female lead in the next dungeon but it'd be too obvious and rushed, I have a fairly good idea of who's second and third so I'll have to wait.

Lastly I wrote these three chapters in a row so updates won't always be so quick and easy (like Sakura's mom HEYOOOOO…again sorry Sakura fans but it'd be cruel to bag Sasuke's mom) so you have been warned.

Also I hope the Zelda/Naruto crossover thing is coming through with the music, again I'm avoiding actual songs and have characters sing pop songs about their pain. The suggestions are just there to give that anime style rpg sense.


	3. Day 2- Pick on someone your own size!

He was Naruto freaking Uzumaki damnit! Future Hokages wouldn't let things like video game rules and World enslaving monsters stop him from saving his precious people! Even if he had to crawl through their personal nightmares!

I do not own Naruto or- oh fuck me this chapter is going to take a long time to edit, I'm spotting really bad errors while writing this…holy shit guys I'm not even looking as I type! THAT'S BADASS bet you reading are so jealous of my amazing typing skills! Or wondering what the hell I'm on about…

Was I right?

*Achem* -or any other character's ideas or concepts from the anime.

XXXX (Code Geass soundtrack Stories)

The first thing Naruto noticed was that his arm and legs felt extremely sluggish again, the second thing was that he was at the ninja academy.

For a brief second Naruto wryly thought that if Sakura's personal hell was the academy She might have more in common with him then she thought. He then looked around the school and noticed how it seemed to be walled in by trees which grew so close together they formed an unpassable wall… subtle. It also was extremely foggy and every-time he looked at the trees at the edges of the clearing, they seemed to shimmer in and out of his focus. Naruto vaguely wondered if the fact the Academy was in a forest rather than in the middle of Konoha had to do with Sakura's nightmare or the game-mind-world thing being lazy.

**Hint: You have now entered a Nightmare! Story quest dreams are different from side rescues or side quests, you have to complete several levels before defeating a boss and days may pass before you finish! Don't worry however this dungeon is short and you are in a stasis similar to the un-trapped during these missions. We've also included a temporary companion to assist you in this quest.**

At this Sakura popped into existence right next to Naruto with a sudden crack and a smell of burning ozone.

"SHANNARO!" She screamed and looked at Naruto and he realised vaguely that this was not his Sakura.

"I'm inner-Sakura, you must be that Naru-creep she's always whining about!" Inner Sakura said rather loudly she looked over Naruto again before bonking him on the head.

"STOP ASKING ME OUT DAMNIT!" she screamed before turning serious "Now we have to go save Sakura from her inner demons because-I've-been-holding-them-back-for-years-so-she-doesn't-know-how-to-deal-with-them." The rather crazed mind entity said this so fast Naruto could just barely catch what she said.

Naruto didn't even have time to ask how she knew all this or why she didn't even question him being in Sakura's mind before she grabbed him by his coat collar and dragged him into the school.

How could cute sweet innocent Sakura have such a bipolar demon in her head?

XXXX (Battle music Battle of Rose)

Naruto felt Inner Sakura stop after they entered the hall and she whispered in his ear.

"I hope you're ready because we got some of Sakura's inner demons headed this way." And Naruto straightened up and nervously got into a combat stance. Then the mounting tension was destroyed when more words forced themselves in his head.

**A battle is going to begin soon! Battle is very simple in Naru mode, jump and avoid enemy attacks and attack till their Hp reaches 0.**

Naruto watched as several rather large and imposing figures came out of the darkness… they were…

Rather brutish looking academy students?

**Academy Bullies lvl 2**

**Hp ?/?**

Naruto started to laugh and Inner Sakura scowled.

"Idiot! Just cause they look like kids doesn't mean they're as weak as them!" and she dodged as one of them shrieked and threw himself at her in a crazed attempt to attack.

Naruto stopped laughing and nodded; he grabbed the arm of one and grunting in exertion he lifted the surprised jerk up and slammed him into a wall, a floating 20 flew up and the creature shrieked before vanishing in a cloud of smoke, and a brown bag dropped down.

Naruto picked it up and it vanished and reappeared as a rather dirty kunai.

**New item acquired! **

**Rusty holdout Kunai!**

Naruto wondered why on earth an academy student would smuggle a real kunai to school and why he didn't use it to attack Naruto; before it appeared in his hands and a glint entered Naruto's eyes.

This could be fun.

XXXX

It wasn't fun, because Naruto quickly found out he couldn't use jutsu. On the first floor Naruto and Inner Sakura encountered several bullies which they both dispatched fairly easily even without shadow clones.

"Hey crazy-Sakura-chan how are you so good at taijutsu when the normal Sakura was kinda bad at it?" Naruto asked as he deflected a clumsy attack from a rather fat toadish looking bully. Naruto swiped at his eyes with his rusty kunai and the demon popped in a white cloud of smoke.

"You have to learn the hard way when you're on your own fighting dozens of these jerks" Inner Sakura said before punching another kid in the face a white puff of smoke reminding Naruto of kage bunshin.

"Sakura has problems?" Naruto asked ever so tactfully a vein throbbed under Inner Sakura's eye,

"Just….shutup…" she growled and slammed a particularly viscous kick into another bully's sensitive area.

A rather sharp crack sound came from that and the words critical hit! 50 dmg! floated up.

Naruto wisely chose to shutup seeing that.

XXXX

It was after a few dozen fights in strange hallways that were made with no real direction in mind that they arrived at a staircase leading up. Naruto saw this as an opportunity to catch a break and talk to Inner Sakura some more.

"Hey Crazy-Sakura-chan, er… no offence but why do you exist…" Naruto mentally slapped himself even he had enough tact to know that sounded like a really mean insult. To his surprise however the mind entity merely laughed lightly.

"Haha you're direct, don't worry I get what you mean." The mind entity waived away the misstep easily "You know how Sakura was bullied when she was a kid yeah? Well I was made as a sort of defence mechanism of to help her deal with the negative emotions and shit when she thought about it. I've spent years fighting off these little twerps I usually stick to the lower floors though, the rooftop can be dangerous. But that's just when I stay here, most of the time I watch what Sakura does and bug her about it" at this a dry smirk made its way onto the phantom's face and Naruto laughed lightly.

"Guess she's not too happy about that then huh?" he said grinning, and Inner-Sakura grinned back.

"Nope, she isn't"

XXXX

The second floor was a little more difficult than the first since now there were ranged bullies who threw rocks and other debris at the pair. However they progressed through the hallways and classrooms intermixed with one another at random with little difficulty and didn't even take too much damage.

With the fighting behind them once again they stopped for a quick break in front of the stairs up.

"Naruto, why do you fight?" The question caught Naruto off guard and he looked over to Inner Sakura,

"Because I have to protect my precious people that's why!" grinned the boy and Inner paused at that.

"Is Sakura one of those people?" she asked nervous for some reason.

"Huh? Yeah! Like Old-man-hokage, Teuchi, Ayame, and Kakashi-sensei too!" Grinned Naruto before he scowled a little "…and I guess Sasuke, even though he's a bastard!" Inner Sakura seemed to deflate a little, but Naruto didn't notice this and rambled on, "Oh right and you to!" he grinned at inner and she froze.

"M-me?" she spluttered blushing

"Yeah! You're pretty tough inner-chan! And you didn't even yell at me when I said that stupid thing downstairs! Normal Sakura woulda bopped me on the head for that one," Naruto said rubbing the back of his head sheepishly before a thought occurred to him "Oh right! Sorry about that as well, since we're talking about that"

Inner Sakura was shocked, being a mental apparition of a 14 year-old girl left with nobody to talk to, nobody to relate to, but this boy….

Tears filled her eyes and she smiled.

"You're my precious person too Naruto!" The fact that he was her only one cemented that as well. The two teens then stopped as they realised how close they were to one another. Backing away with red faces the two teens were half grateful when a Bully ran around the corner and screamed loudly before attacking…

XXXX

The third floor was a nightmare, unlike the last two floors this one had deadly traps hooked up that when Bullies tripped did fatal amounts of damage and Naruto and Inner had to be careful not to trip any for fear of death.

This added in with the fact that there occasionally rooms filled with crowds of bullies meant the 3rd floor was either filled with intense fights or stressful hallways with traps and occasional bullies.

One floor filled with gruelling fights later and Naruto was feeling a little worn down while Inner Sakura felt exhausted. She collapsed against the wall and groaned softly when they finally found the stairs leading to the rooftops.

"Inner chan… You okay?" Naruto asked worriedly stopping and crouching down to talk to Sakura at eye level,

"I'm fine…just not used to….fighting this long…." Inner Sakura said in-between huffs. Suddenly the world shifted grey and words appeared above Inner Sakura's head.

**KARMATIC MOMENT**

_Will you force Inner Sakura to stop and catch a break! If she goes on to the boss in this state she wouldn't last long, but she might make a good distraction…_

Naruto shrugged he was going to make Inner stop anyway, fighting tired like that was going to get her killed.

"Hey howabout I go ahead and you rest up, there's no sense in you getting killed for no reason right?" Naruto suggested softly, Inner Sakura scowled and bonked Naruto's head but it had no force behind it and Naruto knew it was playful.

"I…can….still….fight…." She said holding onto Naruto's arm Naruto poked her nose and she half-heartedly swatted at his arm before glaring at him, Naruto grinned.

"You would've bitten off that finger if you were at 100%" Naruto laughed " now sit back here I'll go take care of the final boss and turn Sakura back to normal she'll need you to help her out after she's awake after all!" Naruto grinned and Inner Sakura sighed.

"Fine, but….when I'm better….I'll catch up…." Inner Sakura hugged Naruto suddenly. "Don't die" she whispered breathlessly into his ear and Naruto stiffened before Inner let go blushing lightly.

Naruto got up and took one last look at Inner Sakura who smiled lightly and mouth '_**go' **_sharply and he nodded and cleared his thoughts of the mental apparition.

Boy this awkward not-romance but kinda-romance stuff was confusing.

**KARMATIC MOMENT COMPLETE!**

_You chose to leave Inner Sakura behind possibly saving her. +10 karma_

XXXX (silence)

Naruto stared at the door to the roof of the academy this was it, this was the final fight before he woke up Sakura and freed her from her nightmare. With a shuddering breath wondering what awaited him inside Naruto gripped the doorhandle and pushed it open.

Naruto found himself staring at a rather odd scene, Kakashi was fighting Sakura on top of the roof while a group of bullies stood in a line and jeered at her, sitting against the roof was Sasuke who had a scowl on his face and dark eyes glimmered with disgust.

Looking over it again Naruto realised it was wrong to say Kakashi was fighting Sakura, he was beating her.

She barely could stop his attacks and was sent flying after a heavy punch got through, the crowd of bullies jeered at her and Sakura teared up. She looked over to Sasuke for help but he snorted and turned his head to the side,

"Pathetic," he whispered and somehow everyone heard it and laughed while Sakura whimpered and cried. Even Kakashi was laughing and it was at this point Naruto had enough.

"HEY! What do you assholes think you're doing?!" he shouted in rage, his slightly torn jacket fluttering in the wind as the entire group quietened immediately. The bullies seemed ready to jump Naruto and (though they didn't know it) get destroyed immediately after doing so before a laugh broke the silence.

Sasuke was laughing, a short, barking, dark, chuckle that sent shivers down Naruto's spine, Sasuke never laughed but Naruto knew if he did, it wouldn't sound like **that**.

Sasuke got up from his seat and looked over Naruto and then cocked his head.

"So if it isn't the _dobe_, come to save the little pink haired weakling." He said mockingly, "I don't see why you would bother she's so weak and useless even her own teacher hates her." At this Kakashi nodded.

"She's so useless I can't even believe she passed her first year as an academy student, never-mind the genin test." Kakashi said and Sakura let out a choked sob at that, the bullies started laughing which enraged Naruto further.

"SHUTUP!" Naruto yelled stunning the group into silence "Sakura is **not** useless! She's my friend and I'm not letting bastards like you treat her like she is. The only weaklings here are you!" at this Naruto drew his rusty kunai out and got ready for a fight.

"N-Naruto please run, you can't beat Sasuke…. He's too strong." Sakura whispered and Naruto growled.

"Be quiet you're being rescued! You aren't allowed to protest, you just nod along and cheer for me!" Naruto shouted "You're my precious person Sakura and don't you ever forget what that means!"

A slow clapping reached Naruto's ears and he saw Sasuke had walked forward;

"Brave words for someone who's about to die!" The Uchi-jerk laughed at that "Go!" he shouted and at that the bullies and Kakashi surged forth.

**Kaka-bully lvl 3 MINI BOSS**

**Hp ?/?**

**Bullies lvl 2**

**Hp 25/25**

(Boss battle music unfinished battle)

The bullies being closer reached Naruto first and just like in the hallways only with more freedom being on a large open roof, Naruto easily slid through their slow attacks and stabbed and punched his way through the crowd.

A puff of smoke accentuated each thrust of his kunai, each punch he made, and every kick he twisted into. Naruto felt a rather gleeful feeling in being the strong one in a fight for once.

However as he slammed twisting kick into the chest of the last bully Kaka-bully leaped in front of him and the fight began.

Kaka-bully was a lot stronger than the bullies but the first thing Naruto noticed was that Kaka-bully was a lot weaker than the real Kakashi.

"You know, the real Kakashi would have beaten me by now, but I supposed a shitty watered down version like you wouldn't know anything about him huh?" Naruto taunted as he ducked under a slash from Kaka-bully's own gleaming Kunai.

"Shutup!" Kaka-bully his and slammed his kunai into Naruto's after a few seconds though, Naruto's kunai broke and Kaka-bully's own kunai slammed into Naruto's chest.

"NARUTOOOO" Sakura screamed and Sasuke started laughing. Kaka-bully chuckled under his mask and said mockingly.

"Looks like all it took for a weakling like you was a 'watered down version' huh?" Naruto mumbled something and Kaka-bully leaned in closer "What was that? Couldn't hear you through your gasps of pain?" he said chuckling.

"I SAID YOU'RE WRONG!" Screamed Naruto suddenly and he slammed his fist into Kaka-bully's face sending the rather sad imitation of the scarecrow into the ground.

Naruto hissed in pain as he pulled out the kunai and watched as a -25 floated up from the wound before it closed and Naruto's health went down to 75.

"How? I stabbed you!" wailed Kaka-bully as Naruto advanced growling angrily.

"Please! I didn't mean to hurt Sakura! DON'T KILL ME PLEASE!" wailed Kaka-bully and Naruto stopped.

"The real Kakashi wouldn't beg." Hissed Naruto and he threw the Kunai into Kaka-bully's only visible eye and the inner demon screamed. It's skin turned a pitch black colour and so did it's clothes before it elongated and turned into a similar looking creature to the one from monkey-anbu's nightmare before with a final wail it melted in a puddle of black goo. Slowly almost mocking a number this time bigger and bright red flew up

**CRITICAL HIT: 100 damage!**

A brown bag flew out of the goo and landed in Naruto's hands

**Congratulations mini-boss has been defeated!**

**Rewards**

**Kaka-bully's mask!**

**200 exp**

**200 monies**

**Hidden reward:**

**Gleaming Kunai!**

**Item lost: Rusty holdout Kunai**

Naruto grinned as he equipped the mask and new weapon and looked over to Sasuke and Sakura who were stunned in silence.

Sasuke started laughing however, breaking the rush of relief Naruto felt.

"Well done! WELL DONE!" he laughed again and clapped Sasuke-bully's confident smirk turned into a crazed grin. "However if you think you've changed the fact you're going to die" He drew some shuriken out of his pouch, "YOU'RE WRONG!" he screamed and threw shuriken at Naruto in a wide circle.

(Boss battle music Dark impetus (mysterious stranger battle) )

**Final Boss!**

**Sasuke or the Uchi-jerk**

**Hp 100/100**

**Mp inf/inf**

Naruto stepped into a gap of the range attack and duck and rolled under a large fireball sent his way. Sasuke charged at him while he was dodging however and Naruto blocked a heavy punch Sasuke threw at his jaw. Naruto then slid underneath another rather badly-thrown (for Sasuke) punch and stabbed him in the arm.

A minus -10 floated up and Sasuke lost some health. He jumped backward and returned to his shuriken throwing and fire spewing pattern before charging again at Naruto. This time however his punch was met with a kick to the face which sent the Uchi-jerk stumbling before Naruto charged and impaled Sasuke on his Kunai a -50 popped up and Naruto Jumped back ready for Sasuke to charge again.

"You know the real Sasuke wouldn't repeat his tactics like that," mocked Naruto a foxy grin on his face though it was hidden by the mask he now wore.

"SHUTUP" yelled the uchi-jerk and Sasuke jumped backward and this time sent several fireballs at Naruto who leapt to the side to avoid them.

However some shuriken were sent flying at Naruto hidden by the smoke and he grunted as they slammed into his chest taking away 15 health.

Naruto sucked in a breath and ducked under a flying kick from Sasuke who had tried to take advantage of his weakened state.

"How's that for a new tactic?" Taunted Sasuke he then kicked Naruto in the face when the blonde turned around to retort leaving him at 50 health.

Naruto recovered and did a back flip off of his hands and landed on his feet and growled realising he was at half health.

"I don't see why you would throw away your life for a weakling like her!" taunted Sasuke who motioned towards Sakura who was trying to get onto her knees to fight the Uchi-jerk with Naruto. "Just give up! Even if you win there's no real prize for all this, unless you think this bitch would put out!" Sasuke laughed at that and Naruto scowled.  
"Give up," Naruto hissed out and charged at Sasuke, who yelped and spat a fireball at Naruto,

Naruto however simply jumped over it and landed behind Sasuke who turned around just in time for Naruto to stab him in the neck without even looking in the Uchi-jerk's direction.

"On making me give up!" Naruto finished dramatically and Sasuke grunted as his health slowly ticked down to 0.

The apparition hissed before it turned into a silhouette the same way kaka-bully had and started to melt, then suddenly it gave a bloodthirsty grin and gave Naruto the middle finger as it melted.

"Watch your back, because the next one of us won't go so easy on you!" it hissed out its features becoming more and more liquefied by the second.

"fuck you and the horse you rode in on!" the vulgar demon now free to act however it wanted then turned to Sakura "And fuck your liiiiiiittlle biiiiiitch tooooo!" the hissing black inner demon slowly melted until finally all that remained was its arm out stretched in a middle finger which melted into the black puddle and then it was quiet.

(Silence)

"NARUTO!" yelled a voice and Naruto turned only to receive a flying tackle hug from inner Sakura who had just arrived. "I got here just as you stabbed the thing in the neck!" laughed Inner breathlessly "I can't believe you won!"

Naruto grinned sheepishly under his mask rubbed the back of his head, "I was just doing what I had to, you two are my precious people!" Naruto laughed before turning to Sakura.

"Are you okay?" he asked and helped up to her feet as her health returned.

"Naruto…..I can't believe you did this…." Sakura said quietly, suddenly her mood shifted and she bonked Naruto over the head "YOU IDIOT I WAS SO WORRIED ABOUT YOU!" she yelled and gave Naruto a tackle hug very similar to the one he'd received from Inner Sakura.

"Mouuuu Sakura why do you always hit me….why do both of you always hit me on my precious head?" whined Naruto rubbing the top of his head, he felt glad everything had worked out, but a niggling doubt thought something important was missing from the scene. Naruto mentally shrugged and shoved the doubts to the back of his mind.

And all was well.

"FUCK OFF"

Or not.

(Vegeta's sacrifice theme extended)

The puddle that was the Uchi-jerk rose up and formed into an inner demon, it foamed at the mouth, which like the other demon Naruto saw was a vertical slit that took up its entire head filled with razor sharp teeth.

**Hidden boss**

**Sakura's inner Demon**

"I'M GOING TO KILL ALL OF YOU MOTHERFUCKERS" screamed the creature and it charged up a beam of dark energy, it poured every ounce of energy it had in the one attack before it screamed and sent it out.

The sickly purple beam shot forward and was about to hit Naruto when Inner jumped in front of the petrified boy and took the hit.

-100 health.

…

Inner fell to the ground with a thump, a gaping hole in her chest.

Naruto's eyes turned red and his fangs grew.

An unspeakable desire to kill filled him and he was surrounded by a red glowing cloak. Sakura stared at Naruto dumbly unable to comprehend what was happening to her friend.

"**I'm going to kill you"** Naruto hissed his demonic red eyes burning into the inner demon.

He shot forward and as a crimson blur sliced through the inner demon in a single flash that sliced the creature almost completely in half from the waist up. He didn't stop there and slashed at the creature again, and again, screaming in fury as the demon stumbled backward.

It gave a terrible scream as numbers flew up rapidly and with a burst of light the creature vanished leaving the enraged Naruto sitting there growling, slowly the terrible rage in Naruto subsided and his eyes returned to their ocean blue and the red aura of death and destruction vanished.

A few seconds of silence passed and then the unwelcome words appeared.

**Congratulations you WIN!**

(Kingdom hearts ost Sora's sacrifice extended)

**Defeated boss Uchi-jerk and Inner demon!**

**Rewards**

**Item acquired: Rookie of the years pants**

**Item acquired: Shuriken (throwing item)**

**Jutsu unlocked!**

**Jutsu learned: Shadow clone**

**Jutsu learned: Substitution**

**Jutsu learned: transformation!**

**Jutsu Available: Great Fireball!**

**Exp: 500**

**Monies: 1000**

Naruto felt numb, until a small choking gasp reached his ears and he ran over to inner Sakura hoping that maybe she still counted as in his party, maybe she'd be okay somehow!

"N-…Naruto" she smiled weakly and coughed out blood "yo-you won right?" she asked and Naruto stared through tear filled eyes trying to comprehend her state.

"Yes… I won" he said his voice shaking, his whole body shaking as he cradled inner Sakura in his arms.

"Go-…..Good Sakura, tell her she has to be….strong….fight her own battles now since I…." Inner Sakura whispered lightly a blood trailing from her mouth not finishing her state and her eyes filled with a strange emotion.

"I want…you to come closer…." She whispered, and Naruto complied bringing his face millimetres from Inner's.

Without hesitation Inner Sakura closed the distance and kissed Naruto.

He stiffened but didn't pull back; instead he pulled her into him and held her in a tight embrace. Somewhere in his mind Naruto realised he tasted blood but he didn't care. He continued to kiss Inner until she weakly pushed him away and smiled.  
"I wa-want you to re-remember me, don't forget about me….and don't forget who you are…." Tears poured this time from Naruto's eyes unrelenting.

"I won't, I swear I won't!" sobbed Naruto.

"I mean it!" Inner said "Nobody has acknowledged my existence, not even I did I just assumed I was another part of Sakura….then you came along and made me feel like more, like a real person, like I mattered please…I…." She trailed off and a strange cold feeling filled Naruto as if his insides had been replaced with ice.

Tear-filled ocean blue eyes met vibrant passionate green, a smile touched Inner's face and slowly the green dulled down. Then she vanished into strange golden particles, the golden shimmers of light floated in the air and slowly drifted off to Sakura's mind to become part of the girl again.

"I won…" Naruto said feeling empty

Since he won why did he feel like such a failure?

XXXXX

AND STOP

Dear god 4,333 words not counting this summary! That's a lot for me, but enough ego inducing fun, let's talk beeeessnuiiiiss

What didja guys think of Inner? I tried to thrush out her character more this time treating as a separate entity rather than a gag that is only done once or twice I was really unsure about how to do her death as well since I either have it really affect and change Sakura, or Naruto. Since Naruto is a permanent character I figured I might as well throw in some romance. It was kinda rushed but then again the two didn't exactly have much time, and plus Naruto was really Inner's only friend. So I tried my best with the limited time, lemme know what you guys think.

Things are also gonna be pretty awkward between the two next chapter huh? I mean with making out with a part of her mind in front of her gotta be kinda weird now.

Weird story, I hated Inner Sakura on my first draft because she had no personality, and now she's alright but a little rushed, then again one chapter of screen time…

This is going around my mind too much now.

Anyway this is just the beginning we haven't even gotten to the fun part of this series, the meat as it were, the fillet, the….. yeah I'm out,

Point is things'll get better when we can move onto characters who are emotionally broken, like Kakashi, or Sasuke, *evil masculine squeal* uuuuohoho I cannot wait for them, those chapter will be so much fun!

But Alas Naruto has to grind now, and I have to go take my pills so until then I bid you

Adieu~

Oh right, sorry for any mistakes I have in here, I'm doing my own editing and even though I am trying my best I'm pretty sure there are some mistakes in grammar, flow, and spelling here and there. I'll try to fix them up as I go and with a few edits but that'll take time.

Also its 2:30 Am in here and this is usually when I **make** the garbled mess instead of making sense of it for you guys.

So please tell me what you think of my garbled messes and review!

Also tell me what you think of story while you're talking about that too.

Cheers!


	4. Day 2- Rescue Aftermath

You know what sucks?

Expository chapters

You know what else sucks?

I don't own Naruto, any music used in here, or the hooker I hired to write this for me.

Uh…. Ignore the last one…

XXXXX

**Day 2- Aftermath**

(Saints row 4 soundtrack – Gateway 2)

Naruto didn't need to see it to know Sakura was staring at him in both wonder and worry. He still didn't know what he was going to do, Inner was gone. They had been alike and Naruto had only realised while the girl was on her metaphorical death bed. Neither of them had any real friends and both of them took solace in eachother, if they had had more time then maybe…

Naruto shook his head it wasn't the time to grieve he had to complete the mission he had started.

Ignoring the blood on his shirt and his last good orange Jacket Naruto walked over to Sakura who had broken out of her stupor. She spoke hesitantly,

"N…Naruto? Are you going to be alright?" she was worried about him, Naruto realised rather stiffly, normally that would've been cause for celebration via ramen with the old man hokage, ironically it just made Naruto feel rather sad.

"I...I guess." He said looking down, truth be told he didn't know, this was the second time where he met someone just like him, before they died in front of him. Suddenly a shimmer of light appeared and a familiar pentagram tattoo appeared on Sakura's forehead, she shrieked lightly before looked over to Naruto realising with a start that something really wasn't quite right.

"Naruto what the hell's going on? Where are we? Why was I being bullied? And Why on earth was Inner Sakura he-" She stopped talking as she realised Naruto had just been made privy to her most embarrassing secret "Naruto you… you can't tell anybody about this" she hissed before realising that the blond had just made out with…

Right, awkward.

"Sakura I'll tell you about this after we get out of here, but I sorta have to touch the mark on your forehead before I can leave your mind." Naruto said feeling for the first time in his life…

Exhausted, well and truly tired beyond belief, he just wanted to rest and relax before sleeping away the rather conflicting and confusing emotions he had. So without even waiting for Sakura's response he walked up and tapped her forehead. He sighed lightly when his vision shifted in a rather familiar way and everything faded to black.

XXXXX (Code Geass OST "stories")

Naruto felt another out of body experience rushing up and he found himself staring at a new menu, wondering vaguely what was happening when he saw an avatar of himself complete with new bloody clothes and mask jumped up and down cheerfully in the air next to a list of stats rewards.

**Rescue Complete!**

**Rewards:**

**Sakura (companion)**

**Ninjutsu unlocked!**

**Skill points unlocked!**

**Levelling up unlocked!**

**Exp- 1000 –LEVEL UP**

**Monies- 5000**

**Points**

**Enemies defeated – 200/250**

**Rewards gained 4/6**

**Secrets found ½**

**Endings 1/3**

**Rank- B**

**Saving progress….. DONE!**

**Achievement unlocked:**

**Mindful Martyr**

**First Secret**

**Bully the bullies**

**First Boss**

**Cherry Blossoms**

**Ready for action**

Naruto read over the last parts again, to make sure he didn't make a mistake.

He didn't even fully complete the level after all **that?** Stifling the urge to scream to himself Naruto mentally commanded the game to continue and found himself returning back to the real world with a few seconds.

XXXXX (Destiny Islands HD remix)

Naruto found himself back in Sakura's house with his hand on the mark on her forehead in the exact same spot he had been in when he entered her mind. Gritting his teeth Naruto found he couldn't move from his spot and tried in vain to pull his hand away from his former crush before she awoke and assumed the worst.

Suddenly the pentagram underneath his fingertips pules with a bright yellow light before returning to its original colour, only it didn't look as sinister anymore, as if the magic had been stripped from it and now all it was some paint.

**Objective complete: Rescue Sakura**

**New Objective: go to rest at your apartment**

**New Objective: Level up!**

Then slowly a groan escaped Sakura and her emerald eyes fluttered open,

"N-Naruto?" She said lightly, as if wondering if everything was a dream. Naruto bit his lip and a flash of pain entered his eyes, she sounded exactly like Inner had during…

Right deal with issues later, right now he had to focus. Slipping on a familiar cheerful façade Naruto spoke;

"I'm here Sakura," he said hoping she didn't notice the brief slip.

"What happened?" she asked looking into his eyes Naruto grinned sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head.

"It's a long story," Naruto admitted laughing awkwardly,

"I…. What are you doing in my house?!" she suddenly yelled suddenly as her mind caught up with her.

"I-"

"STOP TOUCHING MY FOREHEAD CREEP!" she yelled and Naruto sighed to himself; he'd forgotten how…passionate Sakura could get.

"BAKA!" she yelled and Naruto mentally replaced passionate with bitchy.

XXXXX

"So you're saying nobody else is free from the spell and only you can wake them?" Sakura said back to Naruto wondering vaguely if this was some sort of prank,

As if seeing her thoughts Naruto said "Yeah if you don't believe me your Mom is downstairs. Oh and you might wanna wash your forehead." Naruto added as an afterthought without even explaining what was on her forehead.

"Was that a crack on my forehead?" Sakura said in a dangerously sweet tone,

"What?! No! I-"

"Did you say my massive big forehead was really dirty and needed a wash?!" Sakura almost shouted and Naruto started panicking,

"Sakura-chan please-" Sakura cut him off with a well-timed bonk on the head.

While Naruto mumbled to himself and rubbed his poor head Sakura went downstairs and realised that Naruto wasn't lying when he said her mom was in a trance. She then saw the pentagram on her Mom's forehead before she realised that Naruto had probably been referring to a mark on her forehead.

Sighing to herself she went back upstairs to Naruto who was currently rummaging in her bathroom.

"Yo Sakura-chan where's your painkillers? There's just weird named bottles here," Naruto asked tossing away a bottle of aspirin.

Trying to be nice to the boy who had literally saved her from her personal nightmare Sakura ignored the vein popping up under her eye, "Naruto painkiller bottles aren't just labelled 'painkillers', and why are you rummaging in my bathroom? Don't you have any manners?"

"That's stupid then how can you figure out where your painkillers are. And you bonked me on the head and even I know that's rude." Naruto said about as bluntly as possible, not knowing that pointing out that someone was rude, was rude. However if he had known that Naruto wouldn;t of cared and just said that Social rules were stupid.

"I-" Sakura stopped because Naruto did make a valid point, "Whatever, so now that I know you're being serious and everyone in the world is locked in their own personal nightmares, what are these…er rules about?" Sakura asked avoiding calling it-

"OH! You mean the video game stuff right?" Naruto declared happily.

"Naruto even though you might be telling the truth about the nightmare jutsu, I highly doubt we've been locked in a video game; that'd be-"

**LEVEL UP!**

….

"What was that?" Sakura asked, trying not to panic as the last time someone had forced words into her head it'd been Ino playing a prank.

"That's what I was talking about" Naruto pointed out before pausing in thought, "But is it really gonna remind me every 5 seconds I levelled up? That'd get anno-"

**LEVEL UP!**

…

"I know the hints can't think for themselves cuz their words, but they're assholes." Naruto said before mentally selecting the level up option.

"Naruto before you select level up we should-"Sakura was 5 seconds too late because Naruto's vision shifted before swirling into Darkness.

XXXXX (Legend of Zelda OST 'Majora's mask title theme'.)

Naruto found himself in a familiar looking menu design but this time there was just an avatar of himself jumping up and down in a corner while words flashed on the main part of the 'screen'.

**Congratulations you levelled up!**

Naruto rolled his eyes before mentally selecting the continue option.

**HINT: You just levelled up! You normally cannot level up in the middle of rescue missions unless there are special circumstances. When you level up you get 5 unassigned stats which can increase your abilities, 5 skill points which allow you to specialise in certain Shinobi areas, and 2 abillity points which will get you special abilities!  
Once you reach level 10 you can select special bonuses! However these only apply to Naruto, when a companion gets 10 levels they unlock an alternate outfit or skin instead.**

Naruto read this over once or twice wondering what stats, skills, and abilities were, sighing he mentally selected continue.

**Hint: This is the stat screen here you can see your basic stats.**

**Hp is your hit points; when these reach 0 you die!**

Naruto sweatdropped at how enthusiastic the hint was about his own death before reading on.

**Mp is your magic/chakra points; you use these to cast Jutsu, however Naruto's Mp is limitless, his companion's MP however is not and must watch their Mp if they wish to cast many spells/jutsu consecutively.**

**Next are your core stats these each affect different abilities and are each useful in different situations!**

**Str- or strength**

**Strength increases the damage you can do with Taijutsu or other melee attacks; it also is used by certain special events.**

**End- or Endurance**

**Endurance increases your overall Hp and your resistance to status affects like poison or paralysis. *Note* this stat is crucial for anyone to increase regardless of specialization**

**Spe- or speed**

**Speed increases how fast you can move, it also increases your attack speed and decreases the amount of time it takes to cast a spell/jutsu.**

**Dex-or Dexterity**

**Dexterity increases your flexibility, jump height, and ranged attack damage, it is also used in certain special events.**

**Spi-or Spirit**

**Spirit increases your MP and also shortens the cooldowns on spells. (jutsu have no cooldowns) it is used occasionally in Karmatic moments and in tests of Charisma. *Note* Naruto starts off with this stat maxed.**

**Int- or Intelligence**

**Intelligence increases the strength of your mind and how much damage you do with jutsu, it is used in certain special events and sometimes in tests of Charisma.**

**Cha- or Charisma**

**Charisma increases the persuasive of your words and the affect they have on people, People will find you more likable and more fun to be around the higher this stat is. It also increases the influence you gain with companions and decreases any loss in companion influence. This stat is crucial in tests of Charisma.**

Naruto moaned at all the reading he had just done, wryly Naruto decided to pour his points into Intelligence to make this sorta stuff more bearable in the future.

Looking over the screen he now had he realised there was something wrong. The game said when he levelled up he would gain 5 stat points, but he currently had 20. He was about to mentally ask what the deal with that was when he noticed on the side it said.

**Naruto Uzumaki- Level 5**

"oh." He said to himself before looking over his stats and also noticing they were higher than he remembered seeing on his inventory screen. Everything had increased and was now 10 aside from his HP which was now 150.

Nodding to himself Naruto applied his stats and looked it over.

**Naruto Uzumaki:**

**Str- 12**

**End- 14**

**Spe- 14**

**Dex-11**

**Spi-~**

**Int-14**

**Cha-15**

Naruto nodded to himself as he looked it over, before mentally selecting continue, wondering what was next.

**Hint: this is the Skill screen! Skills affect your different attacks and unlock different abilities as you put more points into them as you progress through the game you will also unlock new skills as you get access to new teachers. You can also increase skills by training ordinarily though your stats will remain unchanged. *Note* any skill with a * next to it is impossible for the current character to learn, different Companions, however will be able to learn these instead.**

**Tai- Taijutsu**

**Taijutsu increases the skill you have in unarmed fighting and fighting with kunai or knuckled style items.**

**Nin- Ninjutsu**

**Ninjutsu increases the amount of damage and the effectiveness of Ninjutsu**

***Gen- Genjutsu**

**Genjutsu increases the effectiveness of Genjutsu.**

Naruto looked over his two choices,

"I knew the infinite chakra would have a catch" he muttered under his breath before looking over his selection.

Ninjutsu or Taijutsu Naruto weighed it in his mind, Ninjutsu were cooler, had more uses and were way more adaptable then any kind of taijutsu.

But as he'd found out Tai was also vital because if he lost access to it he would be defenceless without some sort of Tai.

Looking at his points he decided to split it even and give 10 to both.

**NEW ABILITY UNLOCKED  
Nin- Chakra Climbing**

**Nin- Water Walking**

**Tai- Hardened body**

**Tai/Nin- Burning fists**

Reading it over Naruto wondered what these meant before he entered the last screen.

Unlike the other two screens he only had 8 points to give out here so he'd be more careful with his choices here.

**Hint: This is the Ability screen! Abilities are different spells and jutsu as well as different bonuses Naruto can unlock, some abilities are only unlocked by making certain choices or freeing certain other people, other abilities are only usable by certain Companions, some abilities can only be unlocked by finding secrets, but most abilities are unlocked by putting a certain amount of points in different skills.**

**After unlocking any ability you can also put more points in it to upgrade its effectiveness and/or damage, and for characters other than Naruto reduce the amount of MP it takes to use them.**

**Abilties available.**

**Shadow clone Jutsu 1/10**

**Transformation Jutsu 1/3**

**Replacement Jutsu 1/3**

**Grand Fireball Jutsu 0/5**

**Fire Fist 0/5**

**Hardened body 0/10**

**Water Walking 0/2**

**Chakra Climbing 0/2**

**Hint: Mastering abilities increases their effectiveness a lot more than normal so it's important to master your favourite Abilities!**

**Hint: When you select an ability a description of it opens up and there you can allocate points into it.**

Naruto rubbed his temples as he processed what he'd just read, a vein throbbed under his eye as he wondered where the hell the bonus from increasing his intelligence was because he was getting a headache from all this information.

Sighing he looked over what he had and opened each one up in turn.

Shadow clone, Transformation, Replacement, and Grand fireball were all obvious, he'd seen these jutsu before and knew what they did, so he opened up Fire Fist first.

**Fire fist (Tai/nin jutsu, Active passive.)**

***Note* Fire fist is a hybrid ability and its effectiveness is increased by both of the skills listed.**

**Hint: There are 3 kinds of abilities, passive abilities you don't have to worry about using as they are on all the time, Active passives take up a section chakra when you use them but after activating them they are always on, Actives are 'one shot one use' abilities that take up chakra when you use them, are used then go on either cooldown or are ready for use.**

**The user must know a fire jutsu, have a very high spirit, and have some points in Tai to use this.**

**The user pours Chakra rather haphazardly into his or her fists making globes of fire erupt around them that add fire damage to any melee attacks they make.**

**Level 1 +5 damage **

**Level 2 +10 damage**

**Level 3 +15 damage**

**Level 4 + 20 damage**

**Level 5 +30 Damage**

Naruto grinned, this was so badass! He could have flaming fists!...

Okay it sounded kinda wrong but it would **Be** badass and that's all that mattered! Besides this also sounded really useful since he could also burn or set dudes on fire when he hit them!

He reigned in his excitement and selected a different ability first though to make sure he wouldn't miss out on something even better he was a little disappointed with the next ability.

**Hardened body (Passive Tai)**

**The user as a result of pushing his/her body to the limits has increased endurance from training his/her muscles. *note* this ability is a must have for any budding tai-jutsu master as it is a pre-requisite for many tai-based abilities**

**Level 1 +3 to endurance**

**Level 2 + 6 to endurance**

**Level 3 + 9 to endurance**

**Level 4 + 12 to endurance**

**Level 5 +15 to endurance**

**Level 6 + 18 to endurance**

**Level 7 + 21 to endurance**

**Level 8 + 24 to endurance**

**Level 9 + 27 to endurance**

**Level 10 + 35 to endurance**

"Laaaaaame why would I do this when I already put points in Endurance?" Naruto groaned aloud ignoring the voice in his head that pointed out this was a far faster way to increase it.

He then selected the final two abilities and grinned. These two were going to be awesome.

**Chakra climbing (Passive Nin)**

**Allows the user to climb walls or trees or use chakra to stick themselves to different surfaces.**

**Level 1 Allows the user to climb walls/trees but requires concentration**

**Level 2 Allows the user to stick to any surface with barely a thought**

**Water Walking (Passive Nin)**

**Allows the user to walk on water or other liquid surfaces using chakra**

**Level 1: Allows the user to walk on water with concentration**

**Level 2 Allows the user to walk on water with barely a thought**

Naruto nodded to himself before putting 4 of his 8 points into the last two, walking on walls and water he recalled were things that would have made his prank-chases much more fun! And if he was chased up walls by Ninja who also knew this, the idea of a vertically placed trap for that purpose was tantalising.

Shaking his head Naruto finally placed his final 4 points into Fire fist.

"I'm gonna kick some ass with these knew abilities!" Naruto shouted to himself before his vision swam before him and everything went black once more.

XXXXX

If I ever have to hear that fucking song one more time….

I don't like this chapter, it's like killing off akatsuki characters like Sasori or Deidara; tasteless, nobody likes it but it has to be done and everyone knows it.

Well I hope you guys do. And yes I know the stats I have don't make sense compared to the ones I first introduced, I had to redo the stat system when I realised my favourite idea (charisma and tests of speech) was seriously overlooked and I decided to copy elements of the original game fanfiction. (Naruto: Game of the year edition for those of you wondering about it, if you haven't already go find it and give it a read, it's one of the best on the site even though I bitch about it below)

I know the idea of abilities and increasing them is inspired (*cough* borrowed) from Naruto: GOTY but the author never uses the ability idea that much. Even though that's the best part of the story.

On that note

Why the hell do Fanfictions like this based off Games never mention the games that much? It's all about the OC's and the situation of Kami fucking with some bullshit rule the author pulled outta his/her ass to make sense of the game rules.

I don't care about that stuff I wanna see Naruto level up, learn something stupidly powerful, and laugh at whatever bad-guy is misfortunate enough to end up attacking first and find out Naruto got a buff. (I'd say we don't care but I am not that egotistical to assume everyone thinks like me)

Anyway I apologise for leaving the main menu loop on for so long if you listened to it but I couldn't change it in the middle of the story for something less repetitive and it is good menu music, unless of course you have to read about stats you already knew while it plays over and over again.

But maybe the timing is just right considering writing takes considerably longer then reading.

But maybe nobody is even gonna care since I only got 1 fucking review…

GUYS SERIOUSLY?  
200- something hits and 1 review

…

You should all be ashamed of yourselves

Except you 1000 fists, this arse of a chapter is dedicated to you, I know it's not much but the fact I slogged through it and now I can get to the good part is exciting because now I wanna write more and that means you guys can read more!

Which is good I hope.

So 1000 fists this story will keep on going thanks to you; I wrote about half of this when I couldn't and then I read your review and was like "well now I have to write this because this guy deserves to keep on hearing more from me!"

Rock on dude

If you want me to post stats now go fu-

Er

…insults to readers aside (I love you guys, yes even you jerks who didn't review…. All 200 of you) if I have to look over 3 chapters (10,000 words now) of stats and numbers again to make sure I am consistent with these stats I will kill myself…. with a plastic spork… and the juubi. (but the last one is just for fun)

This partially insane rant has gone on long enough so to sum up in 3 succinct points.

THANK YOU 1000 FISTS THIS STORY LIVES THANKS TO YOU!

Please review guys, these sustain the story, bitch about Sakura, my mistakes, or just ask for more, I just want a response to know if I should keep going

And this chapter wasn't very fun but the next two will be extremely fun.


	5. Day 3- Business of the Damned

_He was Naruto freaking Uzumaki damnit! Future Hokages wouldn't let things like video game rules and World enslaving monsters stop him from saving his precious people! Even if he had to crawl through their personal nightmares!_

I do not own Naruto or any other ideas or concepts from the anime/manga, I do own a fancy-shmancy tablet which right after a little editing and review answering I get to use to watch more youtube.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM youtube!

Oh yeah happy new year everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful 2014, if you want to have lots of fun in your free time, just reread this story over and over again! OH! And give me lots of money so I can buy…er better writing equipment! *cough* yeah that!

Right greedy rant aside! Happy new-year!

(silence)

_The kunai in his hand was sharp and not bright enough to reflect light, just the way he liked it. He dodged under another swipe from his opponent and plunged into his skull. Bah too easy, if ninja were this weak nowadays he'd consider going out of retirement to show the young-uns a thing or two. Then a scream broke the air and he turned frantically to his home, running as fast he could._

_No, they couldn't hurt her, she was a good ninja she should be able to get out…_

_His daughter struggled against her captor as he held a kunai to her throat._

_A memory flashed by of the same thing happening to her mother, he let out a strangled yelp and the nin drew his kunai across her throat, a crimson spray…_

_He broke down and sobbed as he watched his daughters lifeblood exit her body, sobs renched his throat and he looked up to his hated enemy, Black hair in a familiar Mullet made itself known to him._

"_YOU! But, I killed you!"_

"_That's what you think," the man sneered and threw his kunai into the broken man's skull._

**Day 3- Business of the Damned**

(Pirates of the Caribbean OST "Jack Sparrow")

Naruto awoke the same way he always did; he had a fleeting moment of pure peace, of serenity, he had thoughts swirling absentmindedly in his head and he may have been about to reach an epiphany about life itself, Naruto was slowly coming too as he realised he had just figured out the point of life it was-

**BZZT BZZT BZZT**

And just like that everything was gone, as if someone had just flushed it all down the toilet.

Naruto grunt smacked the sleep button on his alarm clock and rolled over to the side that was when he heard a knock on his door.

"Go away, lemme sleep!" he shouted still not quite fully awake.

"Naruto open the door we have to go save Sa- whoevers next!" shouted Sakura on the other side.

"I don't wanna, so lemme sleep!" he shouted back rolling over,

"Naruto I swear if you don't start getting ready I will hurt you!" yelled Sakura and Naruto snorted before putting a pillow on top of his head and drowning out the sounds of his pink haired 'lady'-friend.

A smile made its way onto his face and Naruto was about to go back to sleep and forget all about his troubles, his eyes drifted slowly closed and his entire body relaxed in pre-

**BZZT BZZT BZZT**

"I WILL SHOVE A KUNAI SO FAR UP YOUR ASS-"

…Naruto er, after waking up…. went about his morning routine…

"BUT NOT BEFORE I-"  
*cough*he showered and… oh for god's sake just timeskip already

XXXXX

After shouting several expletives at his rather unfortunate alarm clock Naruto finally got dressed in the clothes he acquired yesterday.

**Primary weapon: Gleaming Kunai**

**Damage 15-20**

**A finely made Kunai, though other then it's high craftsmanship there's nothing rather out of the ordinary about it otherwise.**

**Throwing weapon: Shuriken**

**Damage10-15**

**Ordinary Shuriken, meant for throwing at the enemy to distract or to cause light damage.**

**Mask: Kaka-bullies mask**

**A rather well cared for half mask, it adds mystery to the wearer and there is a hidden hole for Ninjutsu to pass through uninhibited and food when one must maintain mystery but eat at the same time.**

**+8 Cha**

**+5 Nin**

**Legs: Rookie of the years pants**

**These black pants are padded on the inside to help the wearer block attacks with his or her legs without getting hurt. They also are only given to the Rookie of the year and have minor seals that help the wearer use his/her chakra.**

**+5 End**

**+ 4 tai**

**+ 2 nin**

**+ 2** **Gen**

**Chest: Black shirt**

**A standard issue Black Shirt (No stats)**

**Feet: Ninja sandals**

**Standard issue ninja sandals (No stats)**

Naruto spent five minutes looking over his orange jacket, it was torn, dirty, and had no small amount of blood, he wondered vaguely whether it was his blood or-

Right don't think about that not now. Naruto pretended it was his from when Kaka-bully had stabbed him and left it at that.

Whoevers blood it was, was a moot point because Naruto knew deep down inside that the beloved orange coat was unsalvageable, he sighed before putting it down, maybe he'd be able to get another one in his next mission if he was lucky.

Sighing he went out of his little room and into the kitchen where he saw Sakura sitting patiently hold a mug of tea. Naruto vaguely wondered where she got it before going to make some cup ramen.

"So uh, what're you doing here this early?" Naruto asked while pouring water into his kettle.

"It's nine…" Sakura said sipping her tea demurely, "and besides we have to start early right? Rescue as many people as we can?"

"Bah my shadow clones are helping out all over town right now so nothing is gonna fall into disrepair what's the rush?" Naruto grinned.

"Baka, what about our ninja patrolling our borders? What about the other villages? And we also have to free everyone before that demon gets free." Sakura said massaging the bridge of her nose, of all the people to be chosen to free everyone…

"I think his name was cabbage-don or something" Naruto supplied 'helpfully'. Sakura resisted the urge to face-palm or smack the saviour of the world; no matter how tempting it was to just reach over and…

"Mou Sakura why are you raising your arm," Sakura eeped and tried to hide her embarrassment by changing the topic.

"Right so what's the next objective say?" Sakura asked ignoring Naruto

"But what about-"

"Next. Objective." Sakura grunted out and Naruto raised his hands passively

"Sheesh alright Sakura,"

Naruto entered the menu and then his journal

**Main objective**

**Rest at apartment**

Shaking his head Naruto wondered if the thing was broken before exiting the menu.

"Same as before Sakura, rest at apartment," Naruto said and the pinkette sighed to herself.

"Maybe you have to leave the apartment before we get our next objective," she said wonderingly, Naruto grinned,

"Well I just finished off my breakfast so let's find out! We'll think of something if it's broken." Sakura nodded as they left Naruto took notice of the +10 influence floating away from Sakura but wisely chose to keep that to himself.

XXXXX

Naruto closed the door and locked it before he turned to Sakura, he was about to ask what to try next when a message came.

**Objective complete: Rest at apartment**

**Main quest updated**

**Saving…**

**Done**

**New objective: go rescue **

Naruto scratched his head and looked over to Sakura

"Did you catch any of that?" he asked, Sakura nodded

"Yeah, I think that's the nin-gear store owner, it's not too far from here, pretty close to that ramen place you love and Ino-pig's flower store." Sakura explained, before going into thought, "We should rescue Sasuke-kun first though!" Sakura then thought to herself _"and then when __**I**__ free Sasuke-kun he'll love me and ditch Naruto!"_

"No thanks, I tried going to a high level area before I was ready before, not really happy to try that again," Naruto said before opening his map, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth. His eyes went unfocused for a second before returning to their normal gleam and Naruto grinned.

"I know the way c'mon Sakura!" Naruto shouted and rushed off, not seeing her angry scowl.

"If he won't rescue Saskue-kun…" Sakura thought to herself, "Then I will!"

XXXXX

(Silence)

Naruto grinned when he saw a decently sized shop this was it,

"See Sakura? Toldya I'd find it….Sakura?" Naruto looked around worriedly,

"Sakura!" he shouted out and nothing, the silence bugged him every time he entered the village proper. It was creepy, Naruto didn't try questioning the reason why music seemed to play everywhere when this all began. It made his head hurt trying to think about it.

(Castlevania Aria of sorrow OST forbidden Area)

"_Hello again young one" _An all too familiar voice hissed out and Naruto whirled around in with a snarl etched on his features,

"Where's Sakura-chan?!" he yelled and pulled out his kunai threateningly, the creature seemed only to be amused by the actions though.

"_I haven't done anything to your missing friend," _The creature said a mocking chuckle escaping it _"But I have been watching your progress and I must say; …I've been amused." _The creature chuckled again but this time seemed to be slightly less threatening than before.

"Glad I could amuse you." Naruto scowled before his vision shifted again and he entered a cutscene.

XXXXX

"_In time I will rule the world, no, I will rule the universe in all its glory and splendour." _The creature hissed out, _"But fate has chosen a champion to fight this and it has, in its arrogance, chosen a worthless brat like you. Though I do sense an energy coming from you… one that I haven't seen in a long time." _The creature drew back its hand and slammed into Naruto's stomach, Naruto gasped for breath and the screamed as an agony ripped through him like never before.

"_Ahah! One of my kind has been sealed within you, I might've known had you not been chosen to…"_ The creature halted in its thoughts. _"The nine tails? In a barely grown brat like you?" _ The creature was getting angry.

"_It seems I underestimated how wily fate could be sometimes," _The creature hissed _"I'll leave you a gift, it seems you may be a threat to my plans after all."_

"Wait!" shouted Naruto and to his surprise the creature listened and stopped out of amusement more than anything else. "What happened to the other villages?" Naruto asked "And the minor non ninja ones and the ninja's patrolling outside."

"_Ah a fair question, one I will answer for free, even though it is a bad habit to answer pest's questions…" _The creature chuckled _"I've teleported the ninja patrolling back into their homes or where the last slept here in the village. As for anyone who was outside of their home, I teleported them back into the last spot they slept that was secure, I can't risk my only source of sustenance now can I?" _ The creature chuckled, _"Now if you do not have any more unimportant questions to ask I'll leave you a gift before I go."_

The creature faded out of existence and in its place a rather angry looking inner demon growled. Naruto grunted as his vision shifted and he found himself staring at the inner demon.

(Kingdom hearts 2 OST tension Rising)

**Under attack!  
Inner Demon lvl:8**

**HP 80/80**

**MP 200/200**

Naruto jumped backwards just in time to avoid a slash from the ebon coloured claws as the creature shrieked.

Throwing some shuriken that hit the creature for -10 Naruto pushed chakra to his hands and fire erupted from them. Naruto looked at his hands looking them over, so this was his new jutsu…

Naruto pulled out his gleaming Kunai and went into a fighting stance, the fire burning around his hands somehow not harming his weapon.

The Inner demon shrieked again and charged at Naruto, this time he blocked its first attack with his Kunai and barely brought it up in time to deflect its other hand before the creature ducked down and its strange spade tail nearly impaled Naruto had he not jumped backward.

Naruto cursed and ran up one of the walls on the street they were on. He tossed more shuriken at the creature leaving it at 60 health, before leaping down behind the creature and stabbing it in the back with his kunai. Naruto then slung himself onto the creatures back and held onto its neck and kept stabbing it, an inky black blood spurting out of the wounds.

Two -20s floated up before the creature shrieked again and stabbed Naruto in the back with its spade tail, taking away 25 health and Naruto felt a bit nauseous.

Ignoring the fact he probably had been poisoned Naruto stabbed the creature again this and cursed as it slid off a piece of chitinous growth on its back only dealing 15 damage.

Naruto expected the creature to try stabbing him again and got ready to dodge. The creature however simply unfolded its massive wings on its back and lifted into the air.

Naruto yelped as they soared into the sky the wind buffeting his face as he held onto the kunai he jammed into the creature's shoulder blade with his right and its neck with his left hand. In this situation neither of the two could attack and the creature flew through the streets of Konoha shrieking. It was at this point Naruto was extremely thankful he had a mask as he probably would've swallowed a bug or something at this speed.

Naruto summoned as much strength as he could and with one flaming hand pulled the kunai out of the creatures shoulder with a brutal twist making it shriek again.

Holding on for dear life Naruto inched his kunai forward slowly as they flew through Konoha street then Naruto saw an overhanging sign and grit his teeth.

The Inner demon saw it too and flew up to his and Naruto grunted as he slammed into the building losing 60 health and purple -10 floated up and Naruto was feeling extremely nauseous as poison surged through his system.

Realising he was only at 45 health Naruto brang his kunai forward again and brought it to the creatures neck, a shot of pain lanced through him and Naruto lost another 10 health to poison.

With a final yell Naruto slashed the creature's throat and a yellow 100 floated up as the creature gurgled and they lost altitude rapidly. Naruto yelled as they approached a rather old and musty apartment building and they slammed through one of the upper floors the old wood giving way to their weight and thrust easily. Naruto remembered them slamming to the ground and luckily the Demons rapidly cooling corpse took most of the damaged and skidded on the floor which sent Naruto flying into another wall before everything went black.

XXXXX (Moby Everything that rises)

The first thing Naruto felt was a massive headache the pain seemed to ripple throughout his entire body and Naruto awoke to find himself only on 5 health.

**Congratulations! You win!**

**Exp 1000**

**Monies 400**

Naruto groaned when the words forced themselves into his head again, did the hint system ever give him a break?!

Looking around Naruto saw the rather messy body of the Demon on the ground, all that he could recognise was the wings sticking out of a pulpy mess of Black blood and gore. Where in Sakura's level the creatures would just melt into puddles of tar, it seemed their corporeal bodies would not clean themselves up.

Feeling more than a little queasy, not from the after effects of the poison, Naruto resisted the urge to puke in case it lost his health and he died from something as ridiculous as throwing up. It seemed that in the 'Level' world getting hit would only reduce his hit-points before healing, here it would actually hurt like a real wound and the health meter was only a gauge then anything else.

Naruto on a second observation noticed a brown bag floating next to the rather disgusting mess and Naruto went over and picked it up.

**Item found: 5x health potions, 2x antidotes.**

**Hint: health potions are healing items that will restore health, you can drink these during combat and they will restore a portion of your health, however you can only drink one health potion every 30 seconds.**

**Antidotes and other items can cure status affects such as poison or paralysis, but they do not restore any health.**

Naruto wondered if he was really lucky or if this was all planned out to teach him how to use health potions before he shrugged and drained one of the red bottles. Naruto swished it around in his mouth experimentally was expecting them to either taste like the best thing in the world or the worst but they only tasted like a slightly thickened sugar water. Not really great but not unpleasant.

However the feelings he received next were very pleasant as a +100 floated up and every part of his body that ached or groaned were silenced and a gash on his hand sealed up before his very eyes.

Naruto grinned happily under his mask and then looked around, the old building had been condemned ages ago, it had happened back when he was still in the academy. He then shrugged to himself mentally, the building was a good distance away from everything Naruto cared about so of course he wouldn't know much about it.

After exiting the large building via the new entrance he had 'created' with the inner demon, Naruto made progressed toward the Higurashi shop without further incident. Trying to quell the nervous feeling in his stomach Naruto entered the building.

The first thing that hit him was the smell; the entire shop had this floating aroma of weapon oil and musty, smoky smell that Naruto presumed came from the forging the owner must have done. The shop was a modestly sized store with weapons and various ninja tool hanging off the right wall of the room. Then two more stands of similar weapons, however on the left side of the room armour's, masks, and other ninja necessities hung or stood in place.

At the very end of the store was the store counter simple glass with Kunai and shuriken underneath, almost this stores version of chocolates at the counter of a supermarket. It was there Naruto saw a man with a rather large build sleeping on the counter, his face twitched and beads of sweat ran down his forehead indicating his dream was probably unpleasant.

The man had rough brown hair and a rougher beard that looked less like the man wanted a beard, and more like he couldn't be bothered to shave. He wore a dusty brown heavy duty apron over a plain shirt with a collar, which Naruto realised meant the man probably made his own weapons.

Wondering how he figured that out Naruto realised it was the extra points in intelligence he'd selected. Before Naruto cleared his mind of these thoughts and steeled himself for whatever waited for him in the man's nightmare

Gritting his teeth Naruto touched the now familiar red pentagram on the sleeping man's forehead.

And once again his vision shifted and everything went black.

XXXXX

Naruto felt his vision swirl and grunted as he found himself in a familiar street of Konoha, there standing in front of him was Higurashi. He was fighting some sort of foreign ninja using a hammer in his right hand and a kunai in his left. Before Naruto could make a move or even alert the man to his presence Higurashi kawarimi'd with a log and appeared behind the unfortunate kunai fodder and slashed the enemy nin's throat with his kunai. If he noticed the 100 damage floating up he didn't acknowledge it.

The man turned and regarded Naruto with a bone-chilling stare and Naruto felt a little nervous, this man seemed far more in control of his nightmare then Sakura had.

Naruto then realised he had forgotten completely about Sakura and mentally kicked himself… hard. Rallying his quickly derailing thoughts he looked over to his target.

"Uhh…hi!" Naruto stammered out "I'm…. uhh…. here to rescue you…" Naruto said realising that the man was far bulkier when he was standing; the man was like three times bigger him!

"Hmph, I don't care what you're trying to do. Stay out of my way." The man grunted before hefting the hammer onto his shoulder. Before Naruto could reply or attempt to stop him the man dashed off towards the Higurashi shop.

Then Naruto heard the sound of fighting and battles and realised that the man was currently tearing up the enemies that were meant to slow down Naruto. He started running after the man cursing under his mask.

What kind of shop keeper was this?!

XXXXX (Silence)

The first thing Naruto realised was that the man needed no help with clearing the level, even though there were no bodies it was painfully obvious that there were lots of fights throughout the five streets that were meant to be 5 levels for Naruto to clear.

Scorch marks on the walls, shattered earth that Naruto suspected was from Higurashi's hammer, and the sound of battle and screams which were quickly silenced let Naruto know that Higurashi was just as dangerous as he looked.

It was after a few minutes of sprinting through the wreckage Naruto found himself staring at the Higurashi shop and he realised it was almost completely destroyed, amongst the wreckage was a scene which would forever imprint itself in his mind.

A man looking around Higurashi's age with a strange haircut and covered in horrendous burn scars, held a girl with mousy brown hair done up in buns by the throat.

Higurashi just stood there frozen in terror as the man looked over at Higurashi triumphantly.

"So, Higurashi? Doesn't this feel nostalgic?" the man Chuckled lightly watching Higurashi break down in front of him. "Granted, last time you didn't break down in the most pathetic way I've ever seen in my career, you just upped and used that suicide jutsu on me in rage," at the last part the man's voice seemed to freeze over with malice. The girl hung limp in his grip in a way that seemed _wrong_ to Naruto as he watched in horror, as Higurashi started hyperventilating, Naruto then realised tears were streaming down the man's face.

"Ooh, are you….crying? wow that's kind of pathetic, I mean murdering your little bitch daughter would be bad, but even when I broke your little slut's neck in front of you on your wedding you didn't shed a tear," the man laughed in a rather broken way that made Naruto's neck hair stand on edge. "Well, well I must say this is quite a treat, the great _Garen Higurashi_ the killer of Iwa's Blademaster sobbing like a little bitch right here, I wish I had some sort of snack with this show," the man started humming to himself and dropped the girl rather unceremoniously, her body crumpled and rage started building in Naruto.

This man was one of the worst bastards he had ever seen! Worse than Mizuki, worse than Gato! Slowly Naruto grit his teeth and unconsciously stated a red energy started funnelling through Naruto.

The man's head snapped towards Naruto immediately, and his eyes narrowed, "Oh my, another little leaf brat to murder right in front of Higu-chan" the man said in sing-song quirking his head to the side, a deranged grin stretched across his face. "I hope you've made peace with yourself little boy, I was one of Iwa's greatest ninja here before this little blubbering fool used a suicide move on me." He sniffed and a mock hurt expression crossed his face, "I had a family back home too, but then you leaf bastards took them out in a bombing run without a second thought. Of course that set me free and I realised something" an obscene, broken smile stretched across his face "People are so frail, so easily broken, I mean look at the little bitch over there, one little twitch of my hand and her neck snapped like cheap plastic, dead just like that, one move and phht" at this the man made an exaggerated motion.

Naruto started growling as more and more red chakra fuelled through him, the very air was dropping in temperature around them but the crazed Iwa-nin didn't take notice of the rather dangerous turn Naruto's mood was taking.

"And you know, mentally we're the same, one dead family and boom, I'm an insane sadist, I started killing leaf citizens, leaf nin, heck I even started 'killing' trees with katon jutsu!" the man made air quotes at killing, "-AND that how I learned the meaning of friendship!" He paused for a second "No, wait that's how I killed lots of people and was feared throughout Konoha!"

"What's your name?" Naruto asked his slitted pupils narrowing and widening quickly.

"Hmm? Its Kumata, why?" he said looking miffed at being interrupted mid-rant.

"Kumata…" Naruto tested, "Just wanted to know before I killed you." He said bloodlust burning through his veins before with a guttural, unnatural roar he flew forward a red toxic aura surrounding him.

(Greatest battle music of all time: Exorcist)

**Boss-fight Kumata the Blade-master of Iwa!**

**Hp: 400**

**Mp: 120**

Naruto flew forward and the deranged nin yelped before a tanto burst into existence in his hands and he blocked Naruto chakra claws barely in time.

Naruto gave out a scream of rage before slashing at the man wildly, a volley of attacks clashed against the man's blade and he started to get nervous.

Slowly his sword got weaker and weaker, until finally the man managed to leap away and he stared for a moment at his burnt forearms and he realised his blade was now melting.

Naruto gave another scream of rage and the man yelped before shifting into a new form,

**New Form! Liquid Nightmare!**

Unlike the other Inner-demons Naruto had fought before this one had several differences, its black flesh bubbled and roiled as if it was liquid, it had massive horns sprouting out of its head. Lastly and most disturbing was the fact it's entire body was covered in eyes all of which opened and closed at random.

Naruto was unconcerned and simply roared again before slashing at the creature again, while the creature wailed and flew away desperately Naruto vaguely realised it was only out of reflex and his claws had passed through the creature without harming it.

Ignoring that part of his brain for the moment Naruto flew again and the fight was on, Naruto continued slashing wildly at the creature who recovered from its fear ant merely watched as Naruto swiped again and again in a flurry of kicks and slashes from the Blonde who was becoming more and more feral looking with each desperate rage fuelled attack.

Finally a moment had passed from his last attack and Naruto breathed heavily, momentarily fatigued. It was then the creature acted and it slashed at Naruto with it arms, instead acting like claws the liquid flesh flew at him like a whip and Naruto yelped as the attack sliced through his mask and left a scar on his upper cheek.

Jumping back Naruto realised he was letting the Kyuubi overtake him and calmed himself down, he had to find the creature's weakness or he'd lose this by attrition.

It was made of some sort of fluid so brute force or physical attack wouldn't work, maybe jutsu would then. Naruto wished for a moment he had put some points into fireball jutsu before looking around the ruined shop desperately for something that would be useful. Then out of nowhere Naruto's eyes focused on the sword that the dream Ten-ten had held. It had a white guard, and a striking black blade, but what made Naruto look at it twice was the purple aura around it. Grunting as another whip sliced his cheek and he was poisoned Naruto leapt over the creature and grabbed the Katana.

**Acquired item!**

**Assassin's Blade**

**Dmg: 25-30**

**Enchantment: +5 venom damage**

**A well-made Katana with several malicious looking runes carved into its red hilt, the black blade made to not reflect any light only adds to the dark aura surrounding it. However it's blade is shorter than most Katana blade's and is the perfect size for you.**

Naruto didn't even acknowledge the new information before dashing forward and slicing at the creature, his hands bursting into flame adding more damage to his attack.

A -40 flew up as his corrosive blade sliced through the creature's stomach and it hissed in pain before leaping backwards. It then opened its obscene vertical mouth and a beam of darkness shot out, Naruto screamed as the attack slammed into his shoulder and shot out, leaving a baseball sized hole in his shoulder, a -60 flew up and Naruto dropped to one knee, breathed in and out raggedly.

He then looked up and saw the creature had flown up to him and was about to decapitate him with its claws. Naruto brought up his blade and blocked the attack before rolling back; wincing at the wound in his shoulder.

Throwing some shuriken and watching annoyed as they passed through the creature Naruto found himself wishing he could make kage-bunshin or at least a fireball! Making a mental note to avoid impulse purchases in the future Naruto decided to make do with what he got.

Dashing forward Naruto slid under the creature's legs and sliced its leg, the cut hissed burned as a -25 flew up out of it.

Naruto then flipped to his feet and swung wildly at the creature, it tried to block his attacks but even its claws melted right through the blade as the purple aura around the sword hissed with each strike.

-20's and -10's flew out rapidly until the creature fanned its wings and the sent Naruto flying with the gust. Performing a handstand and recovering Naruto yelped as the creature pushed the attack and dodged desperately as the creature pushed the attack.

It was a contest of who could hold the advantage long enough to kill the other. Naruto grunted as he ducked and weaved through the creature's untrained, yet fast and deadly attacks. Naruto didn't even notice the beam of darkness gathering in the creature's mouth until it was too late and the Nightmare blasted it out and missed barely the beam hissing passed by Naruto's ear. The beam still grazed Naruto's unwounded shoulder, leaving a nasty burn on his arm.

Hissing in pain Naruto saw the attack left the creature open, and he slashed out its throat, his venomous blade nearly decapitating the creature as it somehow managed to howl. It stumbled backwards as it dropped down to dangerously low health.

Naruto gasped for breath he was in a similar way with only 20 health left after the beam and the flurry of attacks he tried to avoid.

Both combatants eyed each other and knew this was their final attack, a dark beam grew in the creature's mouth and Naruto charged up his fire fists.

Charging Naruto kept an eye on the creature's attack Naruto. For a few seconds time seemed to slow down for Naruto, Higurashi knelt by his daughter's body sobbing incoherently, the wreckage of what was once the blacksmith was now scarcely a few waist height walls. The Nightmare seemed to roar in triumph as it launched its attack.

Naruto ducked under the assault and slid forward barely in time to avoid the attack, he then used his momentum to pull himself to his feet and slam his blade into the creature's chest. Slowly a floating -80 flew up and time resumed its normal pace. Naruto watched as the creature wailed before melting into tar.

It was over; the most difficult fight of his life was over.

But looking over the blacksmith holding his daughter's body, Naruto realised dumbly that it had only just begun.

XXXXX

Holy, fucking, shit.

This chapter was really weird, the stuff I planned to be awesome and epic took me ages to write and dragged on forever. But early on the fight with the flying demon was complete improv. Fun fact Higurashi's has five different versions that I all scrapped until I got this one, I'm STILL not really happy with the fight but it'll do and Naruto got a cool sword that I pulled out of my ass when I realised he didn't have anything non-physical to spam at the liquid nightmare. (another improve boss)

Sorry about the lack of replies to comments or updates, the chapter took longer to write then I thought and then Christmas hit and I got a tablet! YAY! But that means I got a new thing to do late at night and that meant slower updates.

But luckily we're getting more and more characters out and more dialogue the next chapter. also nobody asked this but Naruto **can** use Shadow clones, but only outside of what the 'game' deems combat because he hadn't put any points into it.

Lastly I watched the rock lee vs Sasuke/Naruto fight before the exams, (I was Listeneing to Rock Lee's theme with Christopher Walken saying "more Cowbell" in the background before that) all I can say is that I think most fanfiction writers have better dialogue then the bloody dub, hell the entire thing reads like a fanfiction where the villain (sorta Sasuke) gets romanticised and op without even trying, oh and Sakura is so dumb it renders me speechless.

Rant aside I'll reply to your comments the best way I can, I have this little rule, that I can only reply to reviews after I've posted a chapter, that way I stay motivated with the thought that all you guys think I've died and hate me for leaving this unfinished.

(Don't worry I always come back to Naruto fanfiction after a few months of some other fandom phase if it comes to it.)

Now before my author's comment gets longer then my actual chapter let's begin!

**Zimbolical: **Hey dude its oaky I just wanted at least one review so I knew if the story was popular with you guys or not! And as far as new abilities go *evil laugh* there will be many! :D

**Kin Tsuchi**: If you **are** the real Kin I want you to know you have an excellent ass! *achem*perving on fictional character aside, I justed needed one review to get an idea of what people thought, I know reviews come slow (trust me I **know**).

Sorry about the lack of cowbell- (SNL skit don't ask) I mean moral choices but there will be more as Naruto interacts with more and more people and he has to start making decisions. There is a big one coming up though!

As far as repeats and grinding goes Grinding will be done with the civilians and repeats…I've addressed that with the guys asking just about that. Naruto will get bloodlines! Though when and which ones are going to remain a mystery MWAHAHAHAHA.

*cough*

Anyway thanks for the positive words ^-^ now go have fun and try to get locked in the fourth's coffin! You'll have a chance to survive that way!

**Temairine: **You have no idea how much me getting Naruto's development right means to me. I read Scorpion's disciple and realised how terrible Naruto usually in fanficition, he's never "Naruto" he always "evil! Naruto or dark! Naruto" which really is just lazy, no offence to anyone who uses that. SO THANKYOU SO MUCH! You made me a happy writier!

Again I addressed the thing about reviews with the others, just needed one yadda yadda,

Thank-you for the in-depth review man, I can't wait to show you guy's the parts I'm looking forward to so much, I still haven't written the part I was so excited about but it's coming!

**Sinister Bowser: **The game is in fact… completely and utterly made up! :D, really it's a blend of Kingdom hearts, Legend of Zelda, and elements of Devil may cry, (mostly I think its angel mode, where you and enemies die in one hit) this is ironic as I don't care for devil may cry, don't much care for Zelda, and have not played a KH game in years.

**Penguinrocks: **Thanks man! Every bit of encouragement helps and I'm glad you like the story!

**TheFatController: **Don't worry this fic won't be abandoned I sometimes ditch Naruto for a while, but after a few months I start reading new fanfictions, get hyped, write my own, so on.

I love the game fics too! There isn't enough fully realised ones that are well written, (well there's three which is a lot for a topic like that but…SHUDDUP LOGIC) I also dislike Sakura compared to pretty much every other character she's boring and one dimensional, and the one dimension she has is unlikeable. But she still deserves a full character and not BASH!SAKURA like I see some stories do *rolls eyes* thanks for the review man! (don't worry about the ranting, I do it all the time)

**10000 fists: **The more you say the more I like. While I wouldn't say I've been clear and thorough *cough* the attribute system *cough* I'm happy someone understood what I wrote! and as far as crack, yaoi, (starting to sound like a fun party now) I know they get more reviews just needed some direction as to what you guys thought! And fuck the flamers indeed! Especially the attractive female ones! …maybe the attractive male ones; if I ever start experimenting! (unlikely sorry guys, I like big butts and I cannot lie)

Thanks for the kind words man, you made this story go on and were one of the guys that made me keep writing )^_^

**Remzal Von Enili: **Well this is a small spoiler I can let loose, the 9 are trapped in Jinchurikis (it only now occurred to me you could be referring to the jinchuriki's but whatevs) who are asleep, however if they were outside of their hosts, they would be asleep.

**Phillipindustry: **That!... Is a secret! MWAHAHA. I really want to tell you guys because it will be a long time before its addressed so I'll say this.

Not right now, no.

**Kffs: **Thanks! I hope I don't disappoint! And the reason they are long is because my dick is- *censored*

Achem sorry about that, my lawyer advised me that it is unwise to make dick jokes to reviewers. But in all seriousness I feel like the game world has a few plotholes that need to be answered directly and I like going into detail, I hope it doesn't bug you :P

**Random Guy: **Hey Guy (not real spelling I know, it bugs me too!) how's Rock Lee? Again replaying is a soopah seecrit! Look to Phillips reply for the long answer ;)

**Sancria: **Thanks! The idea for the nightmares just hit me out of nowhere and I've been itching to do either a game styled fic or a chuunin exam day styled fic (without the slowly declining sanity of the author bit…I'm already batshit insane!) and as for a time limit, I'll be honest…

Nope not really, I'm surprised you picked up on the idea so quickly though, while in reality there would be a time limit, its not gonna affect the story aside from it being mentioned here and there to add pressure.

Er… then this would take away from the affect..

DON'T READ THAT!

….damnit

Anyway that's all for the reviews. PHEW!

I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep replying to every individual review so please don't be mad if I miss yours, all of you guys are special to me and I love you equally (lies) so don't be afraid to review.

Also 2 questions for you guys, I'm curious as to who you think the next person will be and why I rescued Ten-ten's dad so soon.

Also what do you think of my music thingy? Should I stop because it bugs you guys or do you guys like it?


	6. Day 3- Ultimatum

I do not own Naruto or any characters from the anime; I don't even own Cabadon because I realise I just took Abaddon the… er…inhaler? Impaler?

Abaddon the failure from Warhammer and put a C in front of his name without even realising it.

(Yes, this was a funny skit but only if you know Warhammer 40k lore.)

XXXXX

Day-3 Ultimatum

**Congratulations! You Win!**

Naruto sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, the game always knew precisely when not to act all enthusiastic about stuff.

**Item acquired Midnight Cloak.**

**Item acquired Assassin's blade.**

**500 monies**

**Exp 500**

**Congratulations you have saved the Blacksmith Higurashi! You can buy and sell weapons and armour now!**

Naruto perked up at that, if that was true it meant he could finally start using all the money he had acquired throughout the past 3 days.

**You have completed the tutorial levels! Now hints will only appear when new information appears in front of you! You can also now begin side quests and rescues! **

**Rebuild society by rescuing the people who you choose! Will you save the world from Cabadon's influence? Or will you only damn it yourself when the time comes? The choice is yours!**

Naruto felt an eyebrow twitch at this, all of this crap he had gone through, all of the monsters and fights he had barely survived, this was the tutorial?!

Growling to himself Naruto squeezed his eyes shut and reined in his rapidly growing temper, he didn't even want to begin to acknowledge the last part of that little tidbit of mind-fuckery.

Naruto stole a glance towards Higurashi and sighed miserably to himself.

The man held his daughter's lifeless body and sobbed into her shirt. Naruto bit his lip and wondered what he should do, ignoring the fact that even he had to admit that he was socially retarded when it came to this sensitive stuff. The only family he'd ever had was an extremely distant Sarutobi as his grandfather figure.

Not even realising the rather depressing nature of his thoughts Naruto decided to wing it and begin with some good news.

" …" Naruto began and the man's red rimmed angry eyes bored into Naruto's Cerulean orbs.

"Kid, if you know what's good for you, you will leave and let me grieve before ending this once and for all." The man said and Naruto's blood ran ice cold as the man's statement rolled over in his head. Surely he didn't mean he'd…

Naruto quashed down the light feeling of jealousy that bubbled up, nobody would do that for the demon brat would they? They'd just-

Bad thoughts, bad thoughts…

Naruto swallowed nervously and realised they'd just spent a very awkward moment just staring at eachother in silence.

"I… thought you might wanna know, your daughter, she's still alive," Naruto said hoping the accusatory glare in the man's eyes might fade away. It did and instead a manic rush filled his brown eyes.

"What?!" he barked out and got up suddenly. Naruto felt a rush of panic as the man ran over and shook him violently. "HOW?! Tell me! I need to save her!" the man barked out roughly and Naruto screamed as the man squeezed his wounded shoulders.

"Stop…" Naruto hissed out. "Stop it!...AGHHH, STOP IT!" Naruto shouted as his shoulders flared in agony. He flared his chakra unconsciously and sent Higurashi stumbling backward. It seemed to bring the man to his senses and Naruto could see the regret in the man's entire body as he sagged forward.

"I… I'm sorry I got caught up in the- my god your shoulders!" the man gasped as he saw why Naruto had been screaming.

On his right shoulder a hunk of flesh was missing at the tip of his shoulder from where a beam of darkness had barely missed his head.

Along with various cuts and bruises Naruto also had a black eye from his crash earlier in the morning, and a trail of dried blood trailing from his lips when he coughed up blood from the poison in the fight with the flying demon.

But worst of all was the baseball sized hole in his upper left chest that gaped open obscenely. Naruto dimly realised that now he was aware of it the hole in his shoulder burned in agony and he hissed in pain. Cursing as his hands started shaking uncontrollably Naruto slowly took out one of the precious health potions he had acquired earlier and took a sip.

The effect was instantaneous, Naruto let out a sigh of relief as his missing parts of flesh sealed over with brand new unmarked flesh. He still ached and only the two worst wounds were healed over, but Naruto knew that the potions had to be conserved until he could secure a permanent source of them.

Sometimes not being stupid sucked, Naruto reflected as he poke a figure through the massive hole in his shirt.

"Look, your daughter is fine for now, the entire elemental nation's has been locked in their own personal nightmares and I've been rescuing people from them, this was yours." Naruto said, the man's eyes widened as he looked around and studied the surroundings with a suspicious glare. "I just have to wake you up out of your nightmare now that I've dealt with the demon that was sent here,"

Higurashi decided to reign in his questions for now and simply nodded. They could talk more once they were out of this hellish place.

Naruto stepped forward and barely managed to lift his arm to touch Higurashi's forehead lightly and the entire world shimmered before descending into a familiar darkness.

XXXXX

**Rescue Complete!**

**Blacksmith (Higurashi) Unlocked!**

**Money unlocked!**

**Monies: 4000**

**Exp 1500 –level up!**

**Enemies defeated 1/50**

**Rewards gained 2/5**

**Ending 1/2 **

**Secrets found 1/1**

**Tutorial levels finished!**

Naruto found himself in a familiar shop and sighed as he wondered how long it had been and where the hell Sakura disappeared off to.

Looking around the shop he heard Higurashi gasp and start to wake up and gasped out in a coughing rasp before raising his head quickly and looking around sharply.

"I'll be damned" he said quietly not even noticing Naruto before a desperate gleam entered his eyes and he got up suddenly and ran to the door behind the counter. Naruto sighed as the man rushed off further into the building.

This was not going to be the slightest bit of fun.

XXXXX

"-and then I rescued you." Naruto said thinking he should look into make a recording of an explanation so he wouldn't have to repeat himself so often.

Higurashi remained silent as they sat in the main living area of the Higurashi household. After rushing into the bedroom to find Tenten (Naruto finally got her name) laying on her bedroom floor in a rather depressingly familiar comatose state, Higurashi had lain her gently on the couch in the main room.

He'd then got up and made two cups of tea and sat Naruto down on the dining room table and interrogated him furiously on what was happening.

Which lead them to here, Higurashi remained silent mulling over some sort of decision before a pained expression made its way onto his face, as if he didn't like what he was about to say.

Naruto got the uneasy feeling he wouldn't like what Higurashi was going to say either.

"I'm sorry but I'm not gonna sell you anything until my daughter is safe." He said finally after a moment of silence, Naruto blinked.

"I'm sorry, what? ...I know you did **not** just say that; cause if you did I think I'd have to punch you." a part of Naruto wondered when he had started being so cynical, or when he'd learnt what cynical meant.

The man remained stony however, "Kid I've lost everything, I **ain't** losing my daughter to some bullshit now after all this, I will do **whatever** it takes to ensure her safety." Naruto felt his temper grow, was he serious?! He'd risk the entire world's safety sending Naruto along in a wounded and weakened state to save his daughter.

"You realise that you're risking the entire worlds safety for you daughter," Naruto said his voice getting dangerously low.

"Yes, and I don't care," the man hissed "You're saving her; one way or another." At this Higurashi's eyes flicked over to his hammer leaning on the wall.

Naruto exploded and slammed his hand on the table "YOU HAVE NO FUCKING RIGHT-"

"I HAVE ALL THE RIGHT!" Higurashi yelled, mirroring Naruto and slammed his fist on the tabled. The table gave way and broke in two at the massive impact of Higurashi's fist. Naruto bit back his retort and glared at the man through his black eye. The retired nin seemed to wilt as he realised what he was doing. He sighed heavily and looked older than ever for a few seconds before speaking up.

"Look I'm sorry, I know it's selfish, but I refuse to let you do anything else until my daughter is awake. She means the world to me after her mother died and I…" the man sighed "I've honestly been a mess ever since. She was only a baby but honesty she's taken care of me far more then I've taken care of her." Naruto sighed, he knew it was hypocritical of him to get angry over this considering his usual approach to his precious people being in danger but…

A cold hard voice of logic had appeared in Naruto's head ever since he'd leveled up, pointing out logic that even the loudest, most stubborn, part of him couldn't refute.

And now it said that Tenten was obviously a higher level for Naruto, and even if he was at his best, (which he wasn't) he'd be in serious danger of dying again. Naruto didn't know if what happened the first time was a fluke or not. But immortal or not he was going to avoid dying as much as possible.

**Karmatic Moment!**

Naruto closed his eyes as the world faded to grey and he was left wishing he knew who was behind the game messages so he could murder them.

**Rescue Tenten for her father?**

**YES/NO**

It was a hard one, the old Naruto would have been equally as torn not sure whether to admire the man's devotion to his precious person, or to fight back against Higurashi's attempts to force Naruto to save Tenten.

However even though it was stupid and was probably going to get Naruto killed. Even though Higurashi had used the dirtiest method possible to get his daughter saved instead of asking or being patient and understanding the world came first. Even though Naruto was weak right now from the past two fights and needed his rest.

Him and his goddamned bleeding heart, Naruto scowled before selecting yes.

**Karmatic moment complete!**

_You chose to rescue Tenten even though you were wounded and needed rest. +10 karma_

"Fuck. You." Naruto hissed out vehemently to Higurashi before he kicked the remnants of the table out of the way and walked over to Tenten. Pointedly ignoring Higurashi; Naruto huffed angrily as he reached out touched the mark on Tenten's forehead hesitantly.

**Begin Rescue?**

**YES/NO**

Naruto mentally selected yes.

**Warning this rescue is meant for levels 18 and up continue?**

Naruto paused as something screamed at him that he was missing something stupid. And where once he would've shrugged and continued; Naruto sighed and selected no.

Naruto then remembered he had levelled up and forgotten it during the fight between him and Higurashi. Slapping his forehead and feeling more then a little stupid Naruto opened up the main menu and levelled up.

XXXXX

Finding himself in the stat screen Naruto glanced over to his icon and gasped, he was now level 9. He then realised it was probably because he had just fought two very difficult fights which seemed to yield a lot more exp then the little ones did.

Naruto placed pointed into Endurance, speed and charisma, knowing that damage was really unpredictable and pretty much was based off crits. And the opposite was also true Naruto needed a higher HP so a lucky hit wouldn't kill him in one blow. Looking over his stats Naruto felt a bit pleased with himself nonetheless.

**Naruto Uzumaki:**

**HP: 500/500**

**MP~/~**

**Str: 16**

**End: 20**

**Spe: 20**

**Dex: 15**

**Spi: ~**

**Int: 18**

**Cha: 20**

Naruto then entered the next screen and looked over the rather empty looking skill screen, he realised that he probably needed to rescue someone important before it would start to expand.

"Well there's that extra intelligence put to use" Naruto said wryly to himself and vaguely wondered if he should be worried about his rapidly changing persona. Shrugging to himself Naruto placed his points evenly between his two options again.

**Ninjutsu-20**

**Taijutsu-20**

**Ability unlocked!**

***Chakra Training**

***Focus**

**Elemental mastery**

Naruto sighed as he realised two of the abilities he'd unlocked were useless thanks to the infinite spirit he gotten.

"Well great, no medical jutsu, no genjutsu, and two thirds of the abilities I got are fucking useless." Naruto muttered to himself.

**Shadow clone Jutsu 0/10**

**Transformation Jutsu 1/3**

**Replacement Jutsu 1/3**

**Grand Fireball Jutsu 0/5**

**Fire Fist 4/5**

**Hardened body 0/10**

**Water Walking**

**Chakra Climbing**

**Elemental Mastery 0/10**

Looking over his abilities Naruto now found himself wondering what abilities he should choose. He shook himself before deciding to read over the abilities he had assumed he knew everything about last time like an idiot.

Naruto did put a final point into Fire fists so they would be useful in fights finally,

**Fire fist mastered!**

**Next level!**

**Black flames taijutsu!**

**1/3 pre-requisites complete.**

Naruto wondered what these ones where before he mentally selected kage bunshin and looked over the description.

**Shadow Clone jutsu 0/10**

**The user splits his chakra evenly to create solid clones with no elemental weakness.**

***only Naruto can use this jutsu beyond level 1***

**Level 1 User can create a shadow clone!**

**Level 2 Naruto can make 50 shadow clones**

**Level 3 Naruto can make 100 shadow clones**

**Level 4 Naruto can make 500 shadow clones**

**Level 5 Naruto can make 1,000+ shadow clones**

**Level 6 Shadow clones can take 1 hit extra hit before popping**

**Level 7 Shadow clones can now appear with no smoke and appear to take wounds and "die" instead of popping in smoke right away.**

**Level 8 Shadow clones can now create their own shadow clones**

**Level 9 Shadow clones can now think independently, and do not have to be managed directly by Naruto**

**Level 10 Shadow clones now send memories to the user when popped.**

Naruto's breath hitched.

It was official; he was the world's biggest idiot for ignoring this jutsu the first time around.

Scrambling to place the last 7 points into his favourite jutsu Naruto vaguely wished he could master the jutsu for the memories right away.

Shaking his head Naruto exited the menu and stared at Tenten's comatose form before tapping her forehead again and entering her nightmare.

He had a horrible feeling about this.

XXXXX

Annnnnnnnnnd that's a wrap.

Mmm this chapter went by alright, nothing much to say here except that we're getting into the meat of the story finally. Sorry if it's a bit rough though, late night editing in like 30 degree temperature sucks.

(why, why did I have to be torn from my sweet, cold, Canada and thrown into this boiling, muggy, rock called Australia!?)

Granted Naruto has to rescue a few more 'key npcs' before things start to get rolling but such is the way in a game where you have to unlock your own npcs :P.

And yes shadow clones are OP as hell, he pretty much can make shadow clones whenever, like he does in canon. Honestly though I regret leaving them available to Naruto right away as it's not fun writing combat with shadow clones.

So if you find yourself wondering why Naruto doesn't use shadow clones that often it's because I prefer straight up combat to clone spamming.

This fic is also getting a bit darker then I wanted it to, hmm guess having character deaths and people trapped in their own personal hells doesn't leave much room for jokes huh? Hopefully when non antagonisty characters like Sakura pop up I can have some humour thrown in the dialogue bits :P.

Also what do you guys think of Higurashi? He's kind of a bastard I know but you're meant to sympathise with him, he's lost everything except his daughter and now he just wants her to be safe, much to her chagrin as a ninja, but don't be too hard on the guy.

Lastly I'm just gonna reply to the bigger reviews now because I don't have to energy anymore to reply to every single person, so if you don't get a reply here I apologise :P, I still love all of you!

Except you Steve! Fuck you! (I apologise if your name is actually Steve)

Replies:

**Kin Tsuchi:** Ah so the 'rp-er' returns! I think there's a hole with your logic about the 8 gates thing, cuz if someone revived you afterwards you'd just live for 5 minutes before dying again :P. buuuut maybe if some did impure resurrection on your rather pleasant butt you wouldn't be alive normally and kept alive by the jutsu,

Or it'd just sap all the user's chakra and Kabuto dies, a win-win really either way.

Timeline wise it's after the wave arc, but juuuuuuuuust berfore Kankuro decides to make a complete ass of himself before the chuunin exams.

I'm sorry about explaining things in the summary but some of them have no reason to be expanded on in the writing itself because Naruto wouldn't worry about stuff like that, but readers might, I'll try to keep expository rants and spoilers here to a minimum.

And as for you making an appearance, let's say inner sakura isn't the only minor character who I was planning on giving a large role in the story, the fact that your commenting is just a happy coincidence.

Lastly FUCKING GODDAMNIT KIN! I hope nobody but me read your review until now cause goddamnit you were spot on. I thought I was being subtle about that stuff too. Seriously though that was suspiciously accurate….you aren't…stalking me are you?

It's just, you know…. Orochimaru was your teacher… he stalks people…..yeah I'm not going outside for a while… (not that I was going out much anyway)

**Twisted Pxl:** I really, really, want to rescue Kakashi soon, its just difficult considering how much bigger of a scale his nightmares would be on. I mean a fresh fangirl genin and a retired chuunin who barely did anything in the war? Not very dangerous enemies.

Kakashi?

Ooooooohh lordy does he have some f**ked up s**t in his life.

First his dad, then Obito, then Rin, then Minato, then Naruto, then Sasuke, then the third, I don't even want to think about it too much :P.

His nightmare will have a lot of detail and work put into it.

As for the Ramen chefs they'll be rescued soon-ish. If not before Kakashi then directly afterwards.

**Remzal: **The demons are trapped inside their hosts right now, sorry I wasn't clear about that :P, they are awake and are aware of what's going on, but are unable to move the hosts body or communicate with them in any way. So they're pretty much trapped in their own personal nightmares without even having the spell put on them, kinda ironic really.

**Random Guy:** You'll see that somewhere ;)


	7. Day 3- The First Gauntlet

Disclaimer, I do not own Naruto in any way, shape or form, nor do I own any elements from the Anime "Naruto"

But I did nail Masashi's mother last night, like a bi-

Right, story mode…

*cough*

XXXXX

**Day 3- The first Gauntlet**

Naruto observed his surroundings quickly. He was in what looked like Konoha except the streets were completely filled with random civilians. Naruto paused as he realised something chilling, as soon as he stopped focusing on their faces he forgot what they looked like. He also couldn't give a name or memory to any of the people walking around when he did look at them.

Feeling a little uneasy as Naruto remembered all the unpleasant experiences he'd had as a kid in crowds; Naruto felt a little relieved nobody seemed to have noticed of him for the moment.

Looking around Naruto was beginning to wonder if he'd have to wander around looking for Tenten when he found her. The first thing Naruto noticed about her was that she too was extremely uneasy looking and she also looked depressed as well. Then Naruto started to hear the whispers start up as he walked closer to her down the street.

"_Did you hear? She's a Kunoichi!" _Someone in the crowd whispered to their friend who replied in kind.

"_Yeah, what were they thinking?! Kunoichi have always been weaker then proper Shinobi who actually __**train**__."_

"_Beats me! I feel bad for her teammates though, how could they put up with a dead weight like that when they'll end up in dangerous situations" _

Naruto felt himself get angrier and angrier at the crowd as his sharp hearing picked up everything the townsfolk muttered to themselves. It seemed Tenten also heard it too as she visibly wilted and walked a little faster through the crowd.

Naruto was about to head over to Tenten and wake her up from the nightmare when he felt a firm hand clap down on his shoulder. Naruto looked behind him and sighed in exasperation; the entire crowd had stopped staring at Tenten and was now glaring at him, just his luck.

**Incoming Battle!**

**Faceless Ones!**

**HP: 200/200**

**MP: 250/250**

Naruto ducked under a swipe from the man who had grabbed him and slammed a now flaming fist into the man's jaw sending him flying backwards, the crowd drew in closer and Naruto realised why such high level bad guys had such low health.

There were a lot of them.

But then Naruto grinned, if they outnumbered him, well he'd just have to even the odds wouldn't he?

"Tajuu Kage Bunshin!" Naruto yelled out making his signature handseal. Kage bunshin puffed into existence all around the street's rooftops, all of them wearing the same grin as Naruto underneath their masks.

The fight had begun.

His clones leapt from the roof tops onto some of the faceless tearing at them with either blades of shining violet or flaming fists, and slowly the crowd dispersed as more and more of them were cut down by the aggressive blondes.

Naruto sliced at one of the Faceless grinning as he surveyed the carnage, if this was the toughest the level threw at him then-

Something black slammed into him and Naruto was sent flying backwards into a store window shattering the glass.

Getting up from the clothes stand he'd landed on Naruto hissed in pain as he plucked out glass from his shoulder. He looked behind him and then he saw it, a group of faceless ones had backed up away from the carnage and made a formation, than the front row of faceless ones all reached out a strange motion as if tracing a circle in the air. Strange symbols appeared similar to the ones one people's forehead, except these symbols were a sickly purple rather than a blood red, and as Naruto studied the symbols more some part of him realised that they were not simply jutsu. Just then the circles flashed white and a wave of Shadow globs shot out and destroyed his clones.

Then the front row of Faceless ones drew back into the formation and the second wave had their spells charged up

Naruto scowled as wave after wave of shadow globs cut down his Kage bunshin, making a handseal he realised he'd have to be careful since he had weaker troops then his opponent, and they couldn't think for themselves. Sighing in exasperation Naruto tugged up his mask and readied himself,

Today sucked.

XXXXX

Street after street Konoha was turned into a warzone. Strange masked blondes ambushed large formations of shadow wielding faceless ones. Naruto had begun to get better at tactics and was now coordinating large formations and ambushes of shadow clones. He was pushing through the streets slowly but surely.

Though his enemy had the upper hand his Kage Bunshin were far better guerrilla fighters since whatever ability these 'faceless ones' used it took time to set up before the crushing waves of shadow globs could be sent out at his troops. Naruto had been using it to his advantage, with a small diversion of 5 clones charging at them before a veritable army of clones would drop down on the unsuspecting creatures from the rooftops, using flaming fists and poisoned blades to decimate the creatures.

Naruto had been trailing after Tenten; catching glimpses of her as she wandered around a seemingly random path. After a few more skirmishes with the faceless Naruto found himself in another street thankfully it was deserted except for Tenten and some guy with eyes that looked similar to Hinata's. Sighing in relief Naruto pulled down his mask and dispelled his clones before walking over to the pair.

"-Kunoichi have always been weaker then Shinobi, but you've set a new low!" Naruto heard the boy say coldly to a rapidly tearing up Tenten. "I know now; it has been your fate to be weak. As if I could ever marry someone like **-**"

**SLAP!**

The sound of hand meeting flesh rung throughout the street and a moment passed where Tenten glared angrily at the pale eye boy. Naruto whistled, none of the other nightmare victims had fought back. The black-haired boy growled angrily before entering a stance,

"You've made two mistakes you weak, pathetic, little girl! First you assaulted a Hyuuga, and second…" The boy's eyes flared up and Naruto realised he had a Byakugan. "You did it in my field of Divination!"

"2 palms, 4 palms, 8 palms," Tenten started screaming in anguish as the Hyuuga's hand's blurred. Tenten stumbled backwards and he continued to count. "16 palms, 32 palms- **64 pa-**" The boy was cut off by Naruto's foot slamming into his face.

A -60 floated up in the air and Naruto growled angrily.

"Who the fuck do you think you are," Naruto said flames hissing to life around his fists as he glared at the Hyuuga,

"I'd ask you the same, you just attacked the Hyuuga prodigy," Neji hissed before glaring at Naruto "I am Neji Hyuuga the most talented ninja in the branch family." He rubbed his cheek were Naruto's foot landed before.

"The names Naruto, Naruto Uzumaki, and I'm the guy who's gonna kick your ass for hurting your teammate like that!" Naruto declared hotly and Neji's eyes lit up with anger.

"And what would you know! You've never had to deal with a weakling like her! Neji spat glaring at Tenten "She's just a burden on the team, someone I, Lee, and Gai must protect and coddle constantly." The colder crueller part of Naruto thought of Sakura at that, but Naruto pretended not to notice the similarities.

"Then help her get stronger dumbass, that's the entire idea of gennin teams," Naruto said rolling his eyes "And now I've stopped caring about what you have to say; so I think I'll just kick your ass and move on." Neji took in the boy's ragged appearance; there were slices and cuts in his clothing and two large chunks of his shirt missing suggesting the boy had been seriously wouned at some point shortly before they met.

Neji laughed.

"Your fate is to lose here Uzumaki; you wouldn't be able to beat me even if you were fresh, but look at yourself; you're worn down and weakened. You wouldn't last a minute, you should give up, and go home before you get hurt." Neji's said a mocking smirk on his lips. Naruto's eyes hardened into blue flecks of ice as he tugged up his now slightly torn mask over his face, and drew his sword.

"I'll give up when I'm dead." He hissed out and started running towards Neji signalling the beginning of the fight.

**GAUNTLET START!**

**Warm-up Boss Hyuuga Neji!**

**HP: 440/500**

**MP 100/100**

Naruto leapt at Neji yelling a fierce battle cry before a jyuuken strike slammed into his neck ending his life.

Neji smirked and was about to say something mocking before he abruptly dodged underneath another attack from behind as the first Naruto exploded in a puff of smoke. Neji used his momentum and swept out his leg behind him in the same motion as he ducked. Naruto quickly jumped, dodging the attack, he then sliced at Neji with his sword and the Hyuuga prodigy leapt away.

"You cannot defeat me," Neji said smirking cruelly. "These eyes see all, including any tricks you might have."

"Right, everything," Naruto said rolling his eyes as suddenly a clone flew down from the sky his sword pointed at Neji. The boy had nowhere to move in time, and Neji cursed before he simply slid around the poisonous blade and tapped the clone in the forehead dispelling it.

He then ducked under a slice from Naruto who had leapt at him, and reached under the blonde's attack and tapped the Blonde's arm a small -100 flew out of the attack and Naruto's arm flopped down.

He hissed in pain and leapt backwards. Noticing his useless arm Naruto grit his teeth before the shadow clones he had in reserve dropped their henges everywhere and started rushing Neji.

Naruto checked his health bar, Neji was at 440 Naruto was now at 400. Naruto scowled before looking over and seeing his clones were getting destroyed by Neji's one-hit kill attacks and the Hyuuga clan's all-seeing eyes.

Naruto thought to himself, quietly and wondered how he could defeat Neji with just one arm when the boy could see pretty much see any attack he made. Naruto thought to himself before awkwardly making a seal by forcing his numb hand into the motions.

"TAJUU KAGE BUNSHIN!" Naruto shouted and flared his chakra,

The street was filled with the kage bunshin who all nodded at Naruto and rushed forward while the blonde readied his blade.

Neji demolished the last of Naruto's first wave of clones while Naruto grinned,

"So those eyes see everything do they?" Naruto asked and Neji smirked

"Are you admitting you've lost now? If you give up I won't hurt you too badly." Neji said and Naruto merely laughed.

"Oh, no I just realised your dojutsu's biggest weakness." Naruto said as he grinned foxily. "It doesn't matter if you see my attacks, it just matters if you can dodge them or not!" just like that hundreds of clones were picked and thrown by other clones, their swords outstretched in mid-air, Neji's eyes widened as his hands blurred again.

Every strike was flawless, every strike was accompanied by a puff of smoke, but the constant barrage left him with nowhere to run, eventually when the smoke from the destroyed clones clouded Naruto's vision he was rewarded with the sound of metal cutting into flesh. Eventually Neji emerged from the smoke furious, covered in thin slices and cuts, with a nasty stab wound in the Hyuuga's arm.

Neji started coughing, and Naruto grinned even more.

"Like it? I call that move Poison clone barrage!" Naruto said and Neji's eyes widened.

All the poison in his system started to act and Neji started losing 5 to 10 health every second. With a wordless snarl he launched himself at Naruto who despite his useless arm dodged the now weakened and much slower attacks effortlessly.

Neji scowled as Naruto continued to dodge his attacks with barely a thought. Neji then leapt away seconds before a clone stabbed him in the back. Sighing in relief Neji realised danger at the last second and barely dodged an attack from another clone who moved into the Hyuuga's landing spot before he'd even landed.

Before he could counter attack Neji realised another clone was about to slash off his arm and he leapt away.

Slowly all the clones that had launched their brethren at Neji, gathered up and attacked him before he could counter attack or properly escape, wearing the Hyuuga down bit by bit.

Spinning around with a snarl Neji screamed in fury and threw a kunai at the real Naruto who laughed as ducked under it. Only then Naruto realised his folly and saw the explosive note that was on the kunai, time slowed for a second, and Naruto raised his hands over his face.

**BOOM**

Naruto's body flew from the explosion and Neji smirked before a final -5 knocked off his dwindling health and hundreds of swords pierced his body, even as his appearance started to melt into black tar and his true form was destroyed by the amount of attacks.

His job was done.

XXXXX

Naruto woke up with a start and looked to his health.

10/500

Uncorking the health potion he had used earlier, he was unable to restrain himself and downed the remaining Liquid and sighed in relief as his health returned. Naruto's arm slowly regained function and all the damage from the explosion was reduced, he still felt sore all over and the black eye, bloodstained mouth, slice on his cheek remained.

Getting up slowly Naruto looked over to the black tar puddle and sighed, he'd have to remember to not get cocky next time a plan worked or he'd bite it for real.

Suddenly his vision twisted and Naruto gasped and knelt to one knee.

**Gauntlet warm up completed!**

**Next stage!**

Naruto found himself in a rather strange scene, Tenten was looking rather beat up trying to hold her ground, as two green blurs brushed past her sent her flying to the ground.

One of the blurs stopped and Naruto rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't dreaming, or was dreaming the right dream since he was in a nightmare.

"**Fuck I hate my job,**" 'Rock Lee' muttered to himself in a fairly demonic voice before 'Gai' appeared before him,

"YOSH LEE-KUN YOU MUST REMAIN IN CHARACTER EVEN IF WE DID GET THE SHORT END OF THE STICK." He shouted and Naruto's eyes drank in the sight as he found he couldn't look away (as much as he wished he could.)

"you're rig-" a glare cut off 'rock lee' and he sighed miserably before continuing "You're right Gai-Sensei! If I don't get into character soon enough I'll…er… I'll run 40 laps around Konoha!"

"And if you pass out during your 40 laps I'll do 1000 inverted pushed ups!" Gai shouted

"And if your arms give out during your inverted pushups I'll do 2500 squats… on stilts!"

"LEE!"  
"GAI-SENSEI!"

"LEE!"

"GAI SENSEI!"

The fake two green beasts of Konoha completed their infamous routine with the dreaded hug S-ranked Genjutsu.

"Now then! Tenten! Your flames of youth are lacking! I'm afraid you simply have no potential at all!" Gai said gravely, while Lee nodded sadly.

"I'm sorry comrade but Gai-sensei is right, you do not have flames of youth. But do not be sad, you've done a bit better than pretty much all Kunoichi."

"LEE! You musn't mention that, it'll just make things worse!" Gai shouted before Tenten coughed out something and the green beasts leaned in.

"Wh- what about Tsunade?" this did make the two demons in disguise pause and 'Rock lee' looked over to 'Gai' who shrugged.

"The-fuck are we supposed to do about Tsunade?" 'Lee' hissed to 'Gai' as they huddled away from Tenten,

"I don't know! I didn't design her nightmares if I did would we be cosplaying the green and stupid twins?" 'Gai' hissed back before the two beasts saw Naruto standing there in shock.

"Are you guys real?" he asked shakily,

"What? No! we're in a nightmare obvious-" An elbow in the side shut 'Rock Lee' up

"Of course we are my youthful friend!" shouted 'Gai',

"No, I meant are do these two people actually exist in the real world?" Naruto said and 'Gai' sighed,

"I guess? I don't know really; but these are the brat's teammates in her mind so they'd have to exist in some form, it'd all depend on her perceptions of them really." 'Gai' explained,

Naruto sighed before brightening up, "Well they aren't as bad looking as those blob monsters; I mean damn those guys are Uuuuuuuugly!" Naruto laughed shaking his head.

"Wha?- HEY" Rock Lee said "I'll have you know us Liquid Nightmares are well respected in the demon world!"

"Are you blobs?" Naruto deadpanned,

"Well… yes but that's-

"And you're monsters, so Blob monsters." Naruto finished for 'Lee' and the not-so-green beast of Konoha swore explosively.  
"That's **IT** I'm not bantering with someone as immature as this idiot, 'Gai' you do it!" 'lee' said making air quotes at the word Gai. 'Gai' meanwhile rolled his eyes and looked over at Naruto and Chuckled.

"I like you! Shame I'll have to kill you soon, but hey, that's the problem for working for someone; you can't call the shots. Sorry brat, nothing personal." The fake Gai said with some genuine sympathy. Naruto shrugged before tugged his mask on, entered his combat stance, and flared his fire fists.

**Boss Gauntlet stage 2!**

**Boss fight! Twin Green beasts of Konoha!  
Rock Lee**

**Hp 1000/1000**

**MP 0/0**

**Gai**

**HP 2000/2000**

**MP 100/100**

Before Naruto could even react a blur shot forward and slammed into him dealing 50 damage. Naruto screamed as he was slammed across the clearing only to be attacked again and found himself in a painful parody of a Tennis match.

Knowing he was doomed If he didn't get away from the trap he was in Naruto drew his sword and started to spin rapidly in mid-air, gathering momentum. The purple streak slammed through Gai's shoulder shaving away 200 health with the extra moment and weight behind the attack. Landing on his feet behind the two green beasts Naruto made a hand seal and filled the clearing with Kage bunshin who attack the two beasts.

Blurs shot through the clearing and Naruto glanced up at his health.

**HP: 250/500**

Scowling at the fact he was halfway to dying in the first 10 seconds of his match Naruto knew the situation was dire. The two Green beasts were too fast for his clones and it was all they could to stall for time while Naruto desperately thought of a plan.

Thinking quickly as blurs flashed through the clearing and demolished shadow clones, Naruto had an idea and grinned.

"Alright you bastards let's see how well you fight without knowing where your opponent is!" Naruto said and filled the clearing with shadow clones again before dispelling them and making a massive smoke screen.

Rock Lee and Gai paused in their onslaught as they coughed in the chakra dense smoke, Naruto now was left with a problem.

He had no idea how to attack the two.

Naruto sighed before he made another shadow clone army. This time his clones flung their partners into the air above the smoke screen, the airborne clone army drew their blades and started spinning filling the air with purple bullets that were about to slam into the smoke cloud

"Poison Clone missile shower" Naruto said grinning, who needed accuracy with hundreds of attacks?

In the smokescreen Gai heard a whistling sound and realised it was some sort of attack heading their way.

"Lee out of the smoke now!" he shouted and dashed out of the smoke just in time, Lee who was less experienced wasn't fast enough and a clone slammed into his side before dispelling leaving a massive wound in his left side and a gigantic -500 floated up into the air from the wound.

Naruto grinned foxily under his mask and filled the clearing with shadow clones again, the intelligence he had now was really helpful. Naruto would never neglect that stat ever again.

Little did he know it wasn't the stats that gave him his ingenuity.

Naruto quickly went through several ideas as the now half healthed Lee wasn't nearly as fast as he was before. He was still too fast for Naruto to fight one on one but he didn't have to.

He was going to use that attack again in more fights it might be cheap but it was devastating against faster opponents like Lee or Gai. Naruto thought as blurs shot through the clearing.

Suddenly Naruto choked as an iron grip latched onto his throat.

"Unfortunately, brat you being the only one of your clones sitting out and meditating gives you away," Gai said choking the life out the blonde.

Naruto gasped for breath and barely made a kawirimi, a clone took his place just in time as Gai jerked his hand roughly and broke the Clone's neck, dispelling it.

"Ahah! What a youthful opponent! He made a clone Decoy, but… where one is he?" Gai wondered aloud not fazed in the slightest.

Naruto hid behind a tree gasping for breath and holding his neck gingerly, the mask covered it up but the skin underneath was tender and raw from the iron hard grip of the taijutsu expert.

"Too close." Naruto said scowling, being overestimated was dangerous since they'd hunt him down with greater ferocity. Still Gai had unwittingly given him an idea…

But if Naruto couldn't think of some new attack fast he was going to die!

XXXXX  
Gai grinned as he felt a presence dash away from the others, the boy had fled after his best attack failed miserably.

"Lee take care of the real one! He's trying to get away!" Gai shouted and Lee nodded and grinned with an uncharacteristic malice running in the direction Gai pointed to.

It didn't take long for 'Lee' to find Naruto gasping for breath and Lee dropped down in front of the Clone user who whimpered at the sight of the green beast.

"So, this is it then?" he said not bothering to stay in character, a maniacal grin stretched over his face Lee drew a kunai menacingly.

"I'm not gonna lie, I'm gonna cut you up before I kill you, I'm going to enjoy your screams," he said; a cruel tone entering his voice.

Naruto backed away until he ran out of tree branch and bumped into the tree trunk.

"I can't die here!" he said desperately trying to think of something, looking around desperately. Lee laughed before stabbing his kunai into the boy's arm and twisted, enjoying the screams. Cabbadon would reward him and his partner for ending the once chance the world had!

Then the Blonde popped in a puff of and Lee's eyes widened.

He turned around just in time for a clone missile to slam into his face obliterating him in a critical hit.

XXXXX

Gai's eyes widened as he felt his partner's presence vanish.

What happened? the boy should have been weak! There was no way-

A trap, the one running away was a trap.

Gai swore and decided he was going to end this now.

XXXXX

Tenten finally regained consciousness, and saw Gai fighting off masked shinobi, she tried to get up to help but groaned and sat back down, Gai's, Lee's, and Neji's words echoed in her head.

Maybe they were right and maybe she was weaker then them, but she had a goal damnit! She had to prove to the world that kunoichi had as much potential as shinobi!

"Fuck this" She swore vehemently and despite her muscles screaming in agony she went to help her sensei.

XXXXX  
Naruto smiled, he had his clones spread out around the clearing in fake meditative trances while he mimicked the pose but with several fake meditative clones watching over him. The trap had worked and he was down one enemy, then he saw something that made him want to start screaming were it not for the fact he would've blown his cover.

His fucking target, the tart he was supposed to rescue was now stabbing his clones and providing ranged support for the most dangerous opponent he had fought yet.

"I'm gonna fuck up that old bastard Higurashi's **other** leg after this" Naruto muttered "Oh please save my daughter" he said in a gruff falsetto "I'll fight you and make you rescue her!" he said scowling, "drop everything for me right now including the fate of the world," Naruto muttered some more before shaking his head, he'd have to save angry rant for later, right now he had a desperate fight to win.

XXXXX

Gai couldn't believe his luck, he had been just about to burst into his true one when the girl the blonde was supposed to be rescuing burst into the clearing and started helping Gai.

Now the boy couldn't attack him anymore and now it was just a matter of time before the little brat ran out of chakra and clones and was the last presence left.

He smirked cruelly making sure to move fast enough that Tenten didn't see the uncharacteristic expression on his face.

XXXXX

Naruto desperately ran through his arsenal wondering how he would be able to deal with Gai and Tenten.

Kunai/shuriken, Poison sword, clones, henge, kawarimi, fire fists, potions, not much in the way of non-lethal attacks, Naruto realised bitterly. He had another gaping hole in his abilities along with the saddening lack of long range attacks.

He was now at 100 health and Gai was still at a staggering 1800 and Tenten…

It was a terrible situation because now he couldn't aim at Gai because the man was too fast to get ahold of and he couldn't just spam missiles or shower them because Tenten would inevitably get hit.

Damnit he needed a way for Gai to-

Be predictable…

XXXXX

Gai felt it, a small change in the air and saw a group of clones huddling together and channelling chakra into something big. Wondering what on earth else the brat had up his sleeve Gai decided he didn't want to know and slammed into the group smashing each clone in the face dispelling them all before Tenten screamed out a warning and he realised he had fallen into a trap.

He gathered his youkai just in time for a barrage of poison clone missiles to slam into him.

XXXXX

Naruto sighed in relief, the bluff had worked and Gai had walked right into an ambush, it was a good thing too, if he hadn't or Tenten used range attacks he'd be unable to use that tactic again and after baiting the man didn't work Naruto would've had to give up and start coming up with a getaway plan.

It was then he felt two separate explosions of Youkai and he buried his face into his arms and screamed in frustration.

**Stage 2 True forms!**

**Liquid Nightmare**

**HP 500/500**

**MP 100/100**

**Tank**

**HP/MP 5000/5000**

Naruto vaguely wondered why the 'Tanks' HP was the same as his MP before deciding he'd use clones and figure out why as they poked and prodded the enemy.

XXXXX

Tenten was more confused and depressed than ever before, she had felt devastated when she saw Gai get cut down by a barrage of clones. But as soon as she'd finished thinking she would never see her sensei again his body had melted and formed into some sort of nightmarish beast.

It was a vaguely humanoid form with two legs and a body, but that was where the similarities ended. The creature had four gigantic and heavily muscular arms, it had no discernible head or face just a ball shaped body. Its skin was pulpy red and looked like skinless muscle. What was the most disturbing was the fact that the ball had no face and just a massive mouth ringed with teeth and a trail of blood from the mouth showed it enjoyed its food raw.

Tenten stared at the monstrosity as it grabbed clone after clone and squished them one by one as it roared inhumanely. Then she felt a hand latch onto her shoulder and twisted around.

"Hey don't attack I'm on your side!" the blonde haired boy whose clones she had been fighting a moment ago. Tenten took another look at the beast that was once her sensei before narrowing her eyes.

"Why should I believe you?" she hissed, "You're trying to kill my sensei, you **killed** Neji!" she said glaring at the boy, drawing a kunai ready to throw.

"Arra, arra, you could say I'm a demon hunter of sorts. That's not your sensei, just a demon wearing his skin; don't you remember him and Lee acting strange before I showed up? That's because it wasn't them it was demons acting as them." Naruto held up a hand before Tenten could respond "Yes Neji, Lee, and Gai are safe and sound right now, but I'll need your help or for you to at least not get yourself killed until I deal with the demons here alright?" Naruto said and Tenten hesitated until 'Lee' burst into the clearing.

She would've screamed had the blonde boy not clapped a hand over her mouth.

It was some sort of nightmarish demon with eyes all over it's body, but what made her scream was the fact it dropped a familiar thing on the ground.

Lee's headless corpse, she could see right inside and realised dimly it was completely hollow inside.

Tenten fainted.

XXXXX  
Naruto quickly dragged Tenten away from the fighting as he made more clones to reinforce the main group, he now had to deal with the two massive demons in the clearing.

His last move had been very dangerous, since clones had no I.Q. and couldn't form words and could only follow the plan Naruto had when he made them. Naruto had to approach Tenten himself.

If she had stabbed him at this health….well he'd be dead.

Quickly getting away from the fight Naruto placed the unconscious weapons user against a tree and oversaw the fight. Luckily unveiling their true forms seemed to have reduced the demon's critical thinking skills because neither of the two took notice of one Naruto acting strange.

The tank was tearing through his forces effortlessly, grabbing, biting, and squishing clones with almost every move he made. Meanwhile the Nightmare was enveloping clones as they tried to stab him crushing the unfortunate clones in his deathly embrace before they could attack him.

The one nice thing was that at least he had almost no health compared to the tank. Naruto thought wryly.

Naruto sighed to himself before getting an idea, it'd be bending the rules of the game but he'd have to kill one of the demons.

XXXXX

Suddenly a puff of smoke surrounded the Nightmare and he paused in his rapid expansion as he crushed clone after clone as he enveloped them in his slime.

The smoke cleared and the air was filled with clones, all with their glowing black blades drawn, the demon smiled inwardly, if they thought an all-out attack on him would work they were wrong; he would just envelope them all in his embrace.

But then he was filled with great pain and he realised the clones were all throwing their blade at him.

Shrieking as his skin was pierced by hundreds of blades the liquid nightmare hissed and sputtered before eventually his health was emptied and his form gave out and melted into a liquid tar.

One demon down one to go.

XXXXX

Naruto grinned under his torn mask and fist pumped, he'd also realised that in his true form the tank had no sensory capabilities making hiding Tenten easier than before.

Now Naruto was left with the issue of the rotund beast that was literally a force of nature at this point.

Humming to himself in thought Naruto paced back and forth. The Tank was too aware and quick for a shower small enough that it wouldn't hit Naruto or Tenten, it wouldn't fall for a bait and shower either since Naruto had just done that. Normal attacks didn't pierce it's skin…  
Naruto swore and kicked a rock, out of all the jutsu he had gotten Fire-fists were useless Naruto realised angrily. He would have to consider getaway options or at least change the fight's location.

He really had to start thinking his abilities through!

XXXXX

Tenten awoke and saw the blonde from earlier pacing back and forth angrily like a caged tiger, he muttered to himself, she caught some words dimly as her hearing dipped in and out.

"-stupid of me, honesty I can't even touch most of my-" "-Out of options-" the boy scowled.

Suddenly Tenten couldn't suppress a groan as her back let her know exactly how much 'Gai's' special training from before felt and the boy's head snapped to her.

"Hey there," he said awkwardly and Tenten closed her eyes,

"Hey" she said.

"Soooooo, funny thing, the big demon, I can't finish him…." Naruto said, finding something interesting with the tree next to her. "Got any big jutsu or attacks that would actually hurt the bastard?

Tenten sighed, she just didn't have to strength for this.

She should've known waking up today was a bad idea.

XXXXX

The Tank stomped on a group of clones and popped all of them, while at the same time all four of his hands snatched out and grabbed clones before either tossing them into his mouth and absorbing their chakra into his youkai or squishing them.

Every movement was a death blow to one of the clones, not a single muscle or attack was out of place. Then he felt it, a change in the wind and the tank rolled backwards and found the entire air was surrounded by clones. Huffing to himself he summoned up a shield wincing as he used some of his life-force to power it, the corrosive red shield incinerating all the clones who were unfortunate to land on it.

Huffing for a second as pain flared through his body the tank felt a flare of chakra and twisted around only to find a fierce and battered Tenten glaring at him over a massive summoning scroll

He tried to bring up a shield to block whatever the kunoichi meant to do but felt his body give out. The tank realised that the clones were a diversion too late.

"Summoning jutsu! Gigantic Iron ball!" Tenten yelled and a massive ball that easily filled the entire clearing slammed into the tank squashing him into a fine paste.

Nobody even notice the -10,000 that floated up from his body.

Naruto fell down onto his knees exhausted, the entire fight had dragged on for far too long for his liking he glanced over to Tenten and was about to open his mouth before a familiar message popped up.

**Gauntlet stage 2 finished!**

**Next stage!**

Naruto was about to cry he was sure of it.

"What the fuck is a gauntlet" Naruto mumbled to himself and another message came.

**Hint: Gauntlets appear in advanced characters or extremely powerful character's nightmares, they are a set of boss battles that are activated one after the other each boss representing one of the person's greatest fears. Bring health potions!**

**Hint: the Hint system will now only appear when you summon it, try it now!**

"Fuck you."

The hint system didn't respond to that apparently.

Naruto sighed as his vision twisted again and he found himself in another forest clearing however this one was far away from Konoha since Naruto couldn't even see the walls that had always poked into his peripheral vision.

It was a strange feeling and Naruto felt a little queasy being out of the village, he narrowed his eyes and slowly tried to adjust to the feeling.

Naruto then observed the scene in front of him and raised an eyebrow. Tenten was standing in front of some sort of blonde lady with massive… stores of chakra.

Naruto wasn't too mesmerised by them since he'd stopped being attracted to looks alone back when inner had blown his mind and-

Right, ignoring that; **that** little tidbit goes in the filing cabinet in his brain that has his treatment of him in his childhood, his questions about his parents, and his feelings on being a jinchurikii; the one Naruto never opens.

Getting back on track Naruto looked over and saw the lady wave away whatever Tenten said and take a slug from some bottle she had belted on her hip. Sighing as he realised there was probably a difficult fight ahead of him Naruto pulled his mask over his face, and walked up to the pair.

"-please Tsunade-sama it's not safe here, there are demons in the forest, I saw them myself!" Tenten said and 'lady Tsunade' laughed.

"Oh please you fangirls will say anything these days to get my attention," Tsunade said smirking as she turned away, while Tenten growled.

Childhood idol or not, **nobody **called a fangirl. Fangirls never trained, never cared, and got killed in their first mission like the fools they were.

"I am **not** a fangirl, and that's not what's important, we're in danger right now!" Tenten yelled out, Tsunade only laughed more at the bun haired Kunoichi. Naruto chose to make his appearance deciding he should probably stop Tenten before she assaulted what he was pretty sure the final boss of the level.

Call it a hunch.

"Yo," Naruto said grinning under his mask at how cool he looked. Not realising who he was the spitting image of at that moment. Naruto turned over to Tsunade who was drooling a little, keeping an eye on her Naruto looked spoke.

"Mou, Ten-san who is this?"

"Who? **Who**?! You mean you can't recognise Tsunade the slug sannin? Arguably the most powerful Kunoichi in the world?! Someone who's saved Konoha, and by extension your sorry ass as well?!" Tenten shouted out, Naruto laughed and apparently only got one thing out of the mini rant.

"Wow, slug sannin?! Jeez I thought the fourth had a bad moniker," Naruto said chuckling, Tenten made a weird noise that caught in her throat. Naruto turned serious "I take by your big knowledge of Tsunade here she's important to you?" Tenten blushed,

"Y-yeah since she's one of the strongest Kunoichi she's a good motivator since she's proof everyone is wrong about kunoichi." Naruto nodded at that when Tsunade decided to speak.

"Mmmm you are so cuuuute!" she squealed out and latched onto Naruto, Naruto jumped backward out of her grip and back-pedaled.

"Oi, oi! What are you doing? Get off me demon!" Tenten turned around and scowled, and Tsunaded sniffled.

"Naruto she's not a demon-"  
"WAHHH NARUTO-KUN IS SO MEAN!" Tsunade cried out and Tenten turned around incredulous, Tsunade was currently crying out tears in rivulets comically.

"Wh-what? She said unbelieving of the situation.

"Ummmm, does this mean I win?" Naruto said scratching the back of his head,

"I know I've lost" Tenten said trying to not have mental breakdown that Tsunade was currently acting like… like a…._fangirl._

Tsunade stopped crying suddenly and a strange light entered her eyes.

"Mmm Naruto, you're so sexy when you treat me badly" Tsunade moaned, she then lowered a shoulder strap and squeezed her two… *cough* assets together while she blushed lightly.

Tenten was aghast, Naruto didn't care, he would've blushed like a tomato before, but he was in combat mode, he was **not** going to be distracted by a pair of, hypnotising… large… breasts….

A mixture of a smack to the back of his head and Tenten's ball shrivelling glare at him made him stop and re-enter combat mode.

"Don't think I didn't see where your eyes wandered!" Tenten growled out, "Don't stare at Tsunade-sama!" Tenten ground out and Naruto held up two placating hands.

"Hahaha I was just….. erm… Inspecting her for hidden weapons! Can't be too careful with these eldritch abominations! You know!" Naruto said.

Tsunade meanwhile was gushing over Naruto much to Tenten's disgust.

"Please, stop acting like a fangirl Tsunade, you're embarrassing yourself, and me, and kunoichi everywhere come to think of it." Tenten said with a rapidly diminishing reverence/

"Psst Tenten" Naruto whispered and she shot him a look

"What?" she hissed back

"I never really explained why I'm here but I'm actually in your mind; basically a big bad demon trapped everyone in their worst nightmare and I have to free them." Naruto explained and Tenten stiffened.

"So Tsunade acting like a fangirl-"

"Yep"

"and that means she's a"

"yep"

"and that means we have to fight her"

"Yep"

"you do realise we're-"

"I can take her," Naruto said grinning, as he drew his blade. Tsunade seemed unworried.

"Naruto-kun you're sooo cooooool, your sword is glowing, are you going to attack me? Are you going to thrust your big, **hard,** weapon inside me?" Tsunade cooed, smiling seductively.

"…." Naruto froze as he was readying himself and just stood there for five seconds. "Thank-you, now I think I can't ever stab a bad guy ever again without thinking dirty." Naruto said shuddering lightly, Tenten rolled her eyes and drew out a kunai.

Tsunade meanwhile had taken her chance to wrap herself around Naruto squirmed trying to get out of her grip.

"Wah? HEY! Get **off** me-MMMMPPHHHH" Naruto jerked back when 'Tsunade kissed him roughly. That was **it**! no more being nice. Naruto shoved the older woman off of him none too gently. Annoyingly she didn't care.

"YES! I got Naruto-kun's first kiss!" Naruto sighed in exasperation; he'd always wondered why Sasuke hated his fangirls.

Ignorance was a sheer beautiful bliss.

"Afraid to disappoint I've already had my first kiss." Naruto said wiping his lips and glancing at Tenten, She seemed to have entered some sort of catatonic state and had dropped her kunai. Naruto felt a little like she was overreacting but then again considering most girls at this age…

An image Sakura punching, Ino screaming, and Hinata fainting, floated through Naruto's head…

Yeah Tenten was fairly normal.

"What!? Who!?" Tsunade barked out breaking out of her 'seductive' act.

"Sasu-nobody you should know about!" Naruto said saving himself just in time. "Now stop goofing off and show me your true form Demon! ...Wait….if you're a demon, doesn't that mean you're actually a dude!" Naruto shouted pulling a disgusted face. "The Hell is your probl-"

"You're soooo cute when you're flustered, just like how I like it!" 'Tsunade' said licking her lips.

"**Stop** that it's not working, you're obviously a demon! Now take off the fake breasts go into your final form so I can beat you up!" Naruto growled.

"Fake? Hahaha tell me; do **these** look fake to you?" Tsunade said lifting up her top and flashing Naruto. His face turned a peculiar shade of red before he twisted around and swore.

"Like I said, not falling for it, now stop!" He growled out while muttering to himself, "don't turn around, not a pervert, don't turn around, not a pervert."

"Fine, but only cause I **Liiiiiiiiike** you!" 'Tsunade said and Naruto turned around and winced.

"Now don't say I didn't warn you little mortal~" Tsunade said a lilt in her voice before with a flash of light a demon stood in her place.

Except not the usual kind, in fact it was a different…. Er model from the usual sort. The demon was the size of a normal human female but that was where the similarities ended. Her skin was purple, and her hands ended in wicked looking claws.

Her eyes had long fluttering eyelashes and full pouting lips but where a normal woman would've had hair she had a pair of horns jutting out of her forehead and purple fire that fell down like normal hair would.

Oh yeah, she only wore what resembled a bikini made out of fishing twine.

Naruto sighed to himself and rubbed his temples, he wasn't sure if this was better or worse than the demons that made Naruto want to claw his eyes out.

"You are so **cuuuuute**, little mortal! My name is Vashaan, and I'm going to beat you into submission," she cooed lightly, "Then I'm going to show you a **fun** time." The succubus finished with a wink.

**Boss Battle! Final Gauntlet boss!**

**Vashaan the Succubus**

**HP: 1500**

**MP: 8,000**

Naruto ignored the flirtatious Succubus and made a familiar hand-seal with a cry he flared out his chakra and clones puffed into existence around him.

"Let's do this!" Naruto shouted. The Succubus merely smirked and waved her hand, strange seals appeared at her finger tips this time tinged blue and ice bullets shot out of her hand straight towards the original Naruto.

Naruto let them hit him and was dispelled revealing he was a clone.

Vashaan raised an eyebrow as with a puff of smoke the air was filled with clones about to attack her. Vashaan merely raised her hands and her eyes stated to glow a rather dangerous looking purple. Suddenly a massive orange ring of symbols appeared around Vashaan in a circle.

Then Fire flashed out of the runes and all the clones where instantly incinerated in rush of fire.

"I'm sorry to say but your little tricks are no use against my magic" Vashaan said smiling, "but making solid clones of yourself, there's some potential there" Vashaan said moaning lightly and she rubbed her-

Naruto stopped looking at her and hid inside a hole as several clones hid themselves in a similar fashion.

"Alright she's shown her magic can shield her, and I don't have any attacks that will get through that… I have to distract her somehow and get her to waste it and then hit her…." Naruto muttered to himself as worked through a plan.

"C'mon Cutie stop throwing clones at me and come out to pllaaaaaay" Vashaan's head poked into the hole Naruto was meditating in and he shot up in the air.

"Ho- How did you find me?" Naruto asked desperately buying for time

"Oh? I can sense innate magic potential, and you have a looooot~ Those little clones have none so I could find you with my eyes closed." she said with a wink "You'll make such a wonderful slave, I could feed off the magic inside you for a long time!" she grinned toothily and Naruto smiled to himself.

"You, know… I don't really want to fight anymore." Naruto said, unsure of what to say next since he was new to the concept of sexual innuendo. "I can think of some interesting things we can do with my clones instead," Naruto said grinning and Vashaan looked surprised.

"Oh? Now, now aren't we naughty~" Vashaan smirked slowly wagging her finger back and forth, She walked over to Naruto and put her face close to his. Their eyes met for a brief second and they were about to kiss, Naruto desperately silenced the part of him that reminded him of Inner.

Just about as their lips were about to meet Vashaan's eyes widened and she coughed up blood as several clones jammed their Assassin's blades into her chest, almost stabbing Naruto through her.

"Gotcha" Naruto said smirking staring into her eyes. Vashaan's face grew thunderous and Naruto's eye's widened as 3 yellow 500s floated up from her wounds. Her eyes started glowing an ominous green and Naruto gulped.

"I knew I should've gone for four clones."

Naruto jumped to the roof of the hole and pumped his legs in a mad dash, getting out just in time as a corrosive acid gushed out melting everything it touched.

"YOU! YOU LIAR AND YOU CHEAT!" Vashaan's voice echoed out and Naruto swore before he made more clones to reinforce him.

The poison should be deep in her system so he would just had to stay on the run for long enough for to die to that. But as Naruto looked behind him and saw Vashaan fly out of the hole and murder his clones with but a gesture and two shadow beams he realised that would be extremely difficult.

Making more clones and sprinting away as fast as he could Naruto jumped up to the trees and ducked in mid-air as a shadow beam shot out slicing through a clone and narrowly missing him.

"I WILL MAKE YOUR DEATH SLOW AND PAINFUL!" She screamed and Naruto remembered an old saying as he sliding under another shadow beam. _'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.'_

Naruto sense screamed at him and he grabbed a tree branch and swung himself around just in time to avoid the succubus's claws from taking out a chunk of his flesh. Naruto landed on top of the branch and then kawarimi'd out just in time to avoid Vashaan's claws again.

The Succubus growled as her claws sliced cleanly through the log that now stood in her future toy's place, she then winced as the strange poison flowed in her veins and throbbed painfully. She was feeling weaker by the second and if she couldn't finish off Naruto fast enough she was in for a rather humiliating death.

Vashaan then realised both of them had forgotten about something important, a cruel smirk adorned Vashaan's face. She knew exactly what to do to catch her new toy.

Naruto looked behind him and saw the demon had gone, sighing in relief he turned around only to find himself facing Vashaan. Naruto jumped backwards and did **not** squealing in an embarrassingly high pitched voice. Then Naruto saw what had happened and his face turned from embarrassment to anger in a second.

Standing in front of him was Vashaan holding Tenten who was struggling against the succubus grip futilely.

Vashaan held a claw up to the girl's throat and grinned a perverse grin as she looked Naruto in the eye "Hold up there little mortal, one more step and I slit the girl's throat." A weird rope of dark energy entwined itself around Tenten trapping her and then the succubus used her free hand to grope the girl.

"Ohhh you have a nice growing body, I might just take you as a little toy as well as blondie, after we're done here of course." Vashaan squealed out with a malicious glint in her eye. Naruto started to breathe heavily, a red energy growing in the pit of his stomach, he hated…. **hated** rape.

Red energy grew stronger as Naruto's inner hatred exploded out in a cloak and Vashaan's went from a malicious joy into fear in a second. Vashaan whipped her head around to Naruto and gasped in horror.

"What!? …this power, Y-you have a demon's youkai!" Vashaan gasped out. Naruto glared at Vashaan making eye contact, she watched as the blonde jinchurikii's eyes turned from their ocean blue hue into a bloody red with slits. "How is this even possible, y-… you're stronger than I am!" Vashaan admitted backing away from Naruto.

"Let her **go.**"

"Ye-yes whatever you say!" Vashaan stuttered out and Naruto actually felt surprised, he didn't expect asking would actually work.

"I apologise for any trouble I have caused you, I beg mercy and forgiveness for my aggression towards you!" Vashaan said kneeling over, as the Kyuubi's power manifested more and more.

Tenten meanwhile could scarcely breathe as the raw hatred and malice filled the air, the air was stifling hot and the power coming off her apparent saviour was both incredible and terrifying.

"_Kill them all, make them feel terror in your mere presence,"_ a voice whispered in Naruto's ear and Naruto then realised he had grabbed Vashaan by the neck and lifted her into the air. Without even thinking about it his hand begun to squeeze and Vashaan choked.

Time slowed down and Naruto realised he couldn't hear anything at all as he held Vashaan her purple eyes staring desperately into his own. She squirmed but she knew she was going to die in a second.

**Karmatic moment**

**Kill Vashaan the Succubus?  
Yes/No**

A moment passed the whispers in his head growing stronger and Naruto's face darkened with hatred, why shouldn't he kill the bitch? It would only be fair, and who cared about doing the right thing anymore, look where it had gotten him! He was trapped with nobody who gave a damn about him one way or the other, he had had a terribly childhood and hey, _why did he even like Konoha in the first place?!_

Then he remembered something.

Naruto remembered Inner smiling at him, the texture of her lips,

And the fact that right now she would be ashamed of him.

Who the hell was he right now? Not himself that was for damn sure. Ever since this adventure had begun Naruto hadn't been himself, he had killed fake Kakashi and Sasuke without a thought, even though they were demons, shouldnt he at least be sickened about being forced to do that?

Who the hell was he the past few days? Someone succumbing to the Kyuubi's influence, right now that's who.

Naruto growled angrily, he wasn't going to let that be him, he was going to forge his own path. He was a future Hokage Damnit! And no weird ass rules or the fact he was in a near hopeless situation would bring him down and take away his fighting spirit! If nobody cared about him, well then damnit he'd **make** them care or die trying, that was his nindo way!

He was Naruto Uzumaki and meant something to him, it meant he wasn't going to let the Kyuubi do as it pleased!

And with that thought the cloak around him faded away in an instant and he dropped Vashaan as she gasped for breath and stared at Naruto in wonder.

**You chose to spare Vashaan!**

**Karma + 15**

**Corruption + 5**

Naruto vaguely wondered what corruption was before he looked down and realised Vashaan was crying. Tears of blood though, but Naruto got the feeling that was normal for a demonness.

"You…. You spared me?" Vashaan asked weakly and looked up at Naruto, "Why? You're a demon, like me! We **don't** spare each-other! We… we kill each-other and devour the body." She said as bloody tears poured down her cheeks. Naruto winced and realised before his sudden epiphany he would've killed Vashaan without a thought, even without the Kyuubi's influence.

Naruto looked down at her again and felt a bit awkward, he had no idea what to do with a crying woman, much less someone like Vashaan

"I'm not like that," he paused after that unsure of what exactly he **should** say. "Just because people call you a demon," Naruto began as he realised what he should say.

"It doesn't mean you have to be one, live life away from them, or if you can't, prove them wrong. Laugh in their insults, make friends even as you know they won't laugh, spit in the face of your fate if it decided you were going to become its bitch." Naruto said to himself, half telling it to Vashaan half realising it for himself.

Tenten walked up to Naruto and sighed to herself,

"So I guess I proved the nightmares right huh?" she admitted while watching the pair Naruto looked over to her confused

"Whaddaya mean" he asked quirking an eyebrow.

"Well I couldn't do a thing against her when she grabbed me, but you didn't even need to fight her!" Tenten said in a mixture of depression, awe, and slight jealousy.

"Well I was kinda getting my ass beaten for the majority of the fight, you're taking this out of context, and more importantly." Naruto said "I wouldn't have been able to take out the Tank from before without your help." Naruto grinned and pulled down his mask, enjoying the feeling of fresh air on his face.

"Let's get out of here" he said and a wry smile came to his face

"It's been a loooong day."

XXXXX

Disclaimer: The Canadian Honeybadger apologises for the lack of his usual "wit", randomness and sarcasm. He is extremely drained and mentally exhausted from this chapter, and will be a little more serious in the following summary, also rather adult topics are brought up so if you are faint of heart or kind of a pussy.

Suck it up, buttercup *grins*

Well.

This chapter was the textbook definition of constipation.

Sorry for the crudeness, but dear god this fucking chapter, 9,000 words and counting. (cuz I'm writing the summary) I don't know why the bigger stories have chapters like this, its not fun to edit or even fucking write chapters this long. The smaller chapters are way more fun and are like little tidbits of writing, LIKE PARTY SNACKS.

So if there is a distinct lack of my usual random humour you guys know why, this chapter was fucking way too long to write, oh and most of it wasn't even planned out, too :P. I pretty much borrowed from Kin Tsuchi's ideas so mega props to you.

This is the last 9000 word chapter you should see from me. The only reason it was this long was because I wanted a hard level for Naruto and several bosses was a good way of illustrating that.

Heck I tried a lot of new things with it. The biggest one being the combat.

Before Naruto was kinda just running around and beating dudes up but here and maybe in the future he'll be more like Code Geass R1 and the focus will be more on the tactics and what crazy plan Naruto has ready.

So tell me guys, Light Yagami/Lelouch Lamprouge style 'combat' or Dragon ball, Naruto, style combat? Or maybe a mix to keep things interesting….like maybe Kin's idea of clones being banned on certain levels….

And another idea stolen from my new favourite reviewer, yay,

I'm also a bit depressed right now because I finnaly reinstalled Neverwinter nights 2 played the Mysteries of Westcliff campaign and realised that the only character I liked,

Was a bitch, a frigid, unfeeling, almost psychopath.

And the game never addressed that shock reveal, just like how in the main campaign nobody ever points out that Kalack-cha probably is considering suicide considering how many things in life he had just had torn away from him in literally a week.

If you havn't played Nwn2 that was a bunch of gibberish so I'll move on, (or maybe write a little for nwn2 in the future, I'm considering it)

I am planning on starting up another fanfiction, it'll either be Soulcaliber, Naruto crossover, or NWN2, I'll put up a poll after I post this mega-chapter, so put in your thoughts and vote! I want to write something you'll guys appreciate.

Oh yeah and you might've noticed a lack of music suggestions, the two people who mentioned it were neutral and didn't like it ( a lot apparently D: ) so I decided to get rid of it. So if you want boss music, sad OSTs just go to immortalmage's channel. (it might be up, it might be down, Youtube keeps flipping between the two but if its up check him out, he has amazing stuff)

Finally I mentioned a rather nasty topic in passing but I felt I'll address here and now and save someone the awkwardness of saying it. Naruto hated, **HATED** rape.

I do too, this is more my thoughts then anything else and I'm going to say it here and now. Even though it probably would be some characters worst nightmare I will not ever write a rape, or imply rape, or even acknowledge it exists in this story.

I hate it, its gross, ruins any humour I felt when it's mentioned in a story, and generally speaking its tasteless as hell. This is me saying on the record that there will be no mention of rape in my stories (Yes I know "You smell like soup" has mention of it, but I was young, wrote like crap, and when I get around to giving it a facelift it will not have it in there) In short: Rape; No. no ifs, buts, or negotiation. Drug use is meh; and I don't see myself using it (in a story) unless there's a good reason. Over abundance of gore; again meh I'll use it when its appropriate both in serious and non-serious contexts but generally speaking there won't be much of it.

And No, no lemons either you pervs, I MIGHT (biiiiiig MIGHT) mention characters have relations of that nature in stories, but I can't see myself writing "he thrust into her deeply, and she moaned under his-" yeah no. I'll be honest Lemons are kinda gross because I become self-aware and realise somewhere somebody is writing this stuff instead of doing something else, and then I realise I'm reading instead of writing or practising, or doing homework, or yadda yadda yadda.

And Lemons are awkward as hell to write, its like posting a video of yourself on youtube mashing two dolls together and making sex noises (non ironically).

Isn't this such a fun topic to read about! :D

Lastly swearing is something I'll do without any seconds thought (outside of the usual editing bs) I swear, people swear, and it isn't usually that awkward, so there will be f-bombs and s-bombs but only if they are needed or make sense, there isn't going to be random swears "cuz it mekes me scuxx brue"

Again sorry about the entire "No-fun-badger" today, I'm just tired and with a serious author's note come's a golden opportunity to address this "No-fun-stuff".

TL;DR

Which combat style do you guys want me to use, careful planning and tactics, a full up fight scene with the combat being the focus, or a mixture of the two where some parts tactics, some parts not?

No more big chapters

No more music suggestions

I will not acknowledge or reference rape in stories

Lemons are gross to me and I will not write them

And there is a poll about a possible second fic alongside this one (I'm not gonna pull a neon zangetsu here and write a million at once just two, that's my unnofficial rule so keep that in mind)

NOW REVIEW REPLIES! YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY-cough

Erasels: hahaha, ha, ha ,haaaaaa. *sniff*

*sobs uncontrollably*

Just kidding, since you hated it so much and you were the majority vote (the only one) the music thing got the boot. As for throwaway characters if I do, its by accident, I've kinda tossed away Sakura in the background but she'll be back. (sadly) as for vagueness, well I thinks its because I'm sexy, and since I'm sexy, being mysterious and vague is like a second nature, and thank **you** for the review, these keep the story going and even mindless "I like this" reviews make me happy for a few hours.

As for debuffs, think of it as trimming, less crap in the way so theres more room for better. :D

Random Gai: I'll reply to all you're reviews in one big go so to save space,

The fact that you thought my story is good enough to review all the chapters probably made my day, like really thanks dude, the positive feedback I've been given has really fuelled the story and helped me with not just writing but pretty much any issues I have in life as well.

And sorry, Naruto becoming less bright and cheery is gonna be a big part of the story, so he will be a dick, he will be sarcastic, selfish and a complete jerk at times. But he will still be Naruto (if I write well enough) and he'll still be the lovable, knuckle-head, who would give his life for his precious people, just I havn't rescued any precious people (Sakura doesn't count) for him to act all defensive about.

And inspiration for the fight scenes…just happens, I actually want to know what your favourite fights and why, cause that'll change the answer, some like the Naruto vs flying demon was spontaneous (and awesome fun in my opinion) some were planned and were either okay or awesome too. Some were a mixture.

Cheers!

Kin Tsuchi: ….

Kinky, figured Taya-chan was the kinkier of the two sound nin girls (not counting gem-filler-lady) guess I was wrong! :D.

I really want to debate the entire revival thing with ya, but it'd end up taking up the whole reply or making the replies longer than the actual chapters so I'll let off for now. And dayum someone else has read as much as I have, think my favourite fanfiction has to be "The great romantic" and "Out of the unknown" both have their issues granted but the quality of writing and characters is just so high I don't care.

And if the story gets into the hall of fame community… maybe your ass will become a 'thing' like Itachi-pocky...

Okay, I know you said you weren't stalking me, but how, HOW, did you know what I was going to write before I knew it, I was in that stage where I was getting ideas for her nightmare and I was panicky because I was hitting a mental blank. Then you pretty much gave me the entire chapter and I was like "duuuude" she knows. She knows.

Well my challenge to you. Is. WHOS NEXT! No handy-dandy foreshadowing as excuses now! If you can guess who's next your either stalking me, or are…like mind linked like from KOTOR games or some shit.

Also weird obsessive rant aside (yay my random persona that overuses brackets is coming back) thanks for the suggestions, I was legitimately lost until you came along and gave me pretty much the meat of the chapter aside from the last bit. (that was all me! :D) and you also finally gave a thorough analysis of who Tenten is (or would be considering she's never expanded in canon) Tenten is my favourite ch- UH I MEAN I AM SUBJECTIVE IN THIS STORY AND HAVE NO FAV CHARACTERS WHO I MIGHT GIVE A BREAK DUE TO THAT.

… anyway thanks! You're legitimately my favourite review or one of them at the very least, so uh…

Yay! Gold star! Ribbons!

I'm looking forward to your reviews pretty much every time I make another chapter, :D

Twisted Pxl: Yeah I did forget, sorry haha, but to be fair Kin also guessed the reasons why and that was the entire surprise twist was that Higurashi was kinda douchy but with good reasons,

Either you already had that scene planned or something, but wondering what would her nightmare be. I would suggest a humorous theme like Gai and Lee stopped screaming Youth or Neji stopped ranting about Fate,

Well if it makes you feel any better you were spot on over here so now I'm acknowledging your foresight, but obviously you're not stalking me because Kin would totally stalk people ;) (I'm doing this thing where I can make fun of my readers in other replies and get away with it because they don't read other peoples replies!)

OTHER obsessive rant aside you can pretty much see Kakashi's nightmare already, there's pretty much no way I'll be able to do something surprising and not-retarded now. So Kakashi dream gauntlet?

Yeeeeep.

Thanks for the review! I've already mentioned it but the positive feedback literally makes my day, it means a lot to me and it makes me giddy that the story has taken off the way it has.

Lewis the King: Nothing to apologise for man, just the knowledge you've read this story liked it enough to come back to it, sign in and give positive feedback makes me ridiculously happy!

Alright last two things to mention

1: I am my own editor (you should know this I bitch about it almost eeeevery chapter) so if there are spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, or something looks like something somebody under the influence of several drugs wrote I apologise. Editing dragged on forever with the long chapter and I went over everything either 3 or 4 times.

Except the ending, it didn't get a final, final look over because I got to the end of Gai's fight and was too tired to care anymore…

Sorry!

2: if I didn't reply to your review I am terribly sorry, this reply thing is already 1000 words long and I like going in depth with stuff, if I replied to every review I had it would take me all night and the replies would be longer than the actual chapters. Due to me waffling on, just one thing I want to make clear:

Do **not** think I do not appreciate your reviews guys, even small ones like "I like your story man" make me ridiculously happy and fill me with pride, so even if that's all you want to say then that's fine I love the knowledge that people like this story enough to review it and it keeps me going!

That's all!

ONWARD TO…

Stat changing, levelling up, inventory management, exposition, maaaaaybe some angsty bits…

ONWAAAAAAARD!


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